Stop Trying to Raise Successful Kids ( and start raising kind ones)by Adam Grant and Allison Sweet Grant in the December 2019 The Atlantic captures so many fine points in raising kids and ties in so well with our virtues program. Here is the powerful opening paragraph:

“As anyone who has been called out for hypocrisy by a small child knows, kids are exquisitely attuned to gaps between what grown-ups say and what grown-ups do. If you survey American parents about what they want for their kids, more than 90 percent say one of their top priorities is that their children be caring. This makes sense: Kindness and concern for others are held as moral virtues in nearly every society and every major religion. But when you ask children what their parents want for them, 81 percent say their parents value achievement and happiness over caring.”

And the ending paragraph.

Of course, we should encourage children to do their best and to take pride and joy in their accomplishments—but kindness doesn’t require sacrificing those things. The real test of parenting is not what your children achieve, but who they become and how they treat others. If you teach them to be kind, you’re not only setting your kids up for success. You’re setting up the kids around them, too.
Read more of the article at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/12/stop-trying-to-raise-successful-kids/600751/