Introduction: The Unspoken Question Every Parent Must Ask

Picture this: You’re at a family gathering, and someone asks your child, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The adults lean in, waiting to hear about future doctors, astronauts, or entrepreneurs. We smile and nod at ambitious answers, quietly filing them away as markers of good parenting. But what if we’re asking the wrong question? What if our entire cultural obsession with childhood “success” is setting up both parents and children for disappointment?

Welcome to the most important parenting conversation you might never have had. It begins with a single, uncomfortable question posed by parenting expert Dr. Kevin Lehman: “How often are we parenting for ourselves versus parenting for the kids?”

This question strikes at the heart of modern parenting anxiety. We enroll children in endless activities, push academic achievement, and anxiously monitor milestones—all while secretly measuring their progress against some invisible scorecard that reflects back on us. But what if the most important work of parenting has nothing to do with report cards, college admissions, or career paths?

The Modern Parent’s Dilemma: When Success Becomes a Burden

Dr. Lehman observes a troubling pattern among today’s young families: “Young families today are driven with the word success. Well, what's success? When they think about success, they think about professions.” He recalls his time as a dean of students: “Everybody was pre-med. Everybody was pre-law. Or do you think they ended up that way?”

This projection of adult aspirations onto children creates what I call “vicarious living syndrome”—when parents attempt to fulfill their own unfulfilled dreams through their children’s lives. The child becomes less an individual and more a vessel for parental ambition.

But here’s the psychological truth we often miss: Children don’t need our achievements; they need their own agency. As psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen powerfully states: “If you do too much for your kids, you build your self-esteem by stealing theirs.”

This creates a paradoxical bind: The more we try to engineer our children’s success, the more we undermine the very qualities that create genuine achievement—resilience, problem-solving, and intrinsic motivation.

The Counterintuitive Truth About Self-Esteem

Modern parenting culture often confuses self-esteem with constant praise and protection from failure. We’ve created what psychologist Dr. Wendy Mogel calls “the fragile generation”—children who are praised into paralysis, afraid to try anything they might not immediately excel at.

Dr. Amen presents revolutionary research that challenges our assumptions: “There's this great study out of Harvard where they followed 454 inner city Boston school kids for 70 years... And the only thing that correlated with self-esteem was whether or not you worked as a child.”

Let that sink in. Not constant praise. Not perfect grades. Not trophies for participation. Work. Responsibility. Contribution.

Self-esteem, Dr. Amen explains, comes from self-efficacy—the deep-seated belief that “I can handle what life throws at me.” This isn’t built through parental cheerleading but through actual experience solving problems, making mistakes, and experiencing natural consequences.

Dr. Lehman echoes this with practical wisdom: “Failure is important. The Christian home ought to be a place where kids learn to fail, and it's got to be grace-filled.” He offers a beautiful, simple example: “When the milk topples and the orange juice hits the floor and the jam hits the floor, what do most of us do? Clean it up. Yeah, eventually. But what do we say? ‘Would you look at that? Didn't I just tell you to be careful?’... What we need, we don't have thrashing or berating. We need a rag.”

That rag represents more than cleaning up spilled milk; it represents grace in failure, teaching in mistakes, and character built through ordinary challenges.

Redefining the “End Game”: What Are We Actually Aiming For?

Stephen Covey’s famous principle “Start with the end in mind” takes on profound meaning when applied to parenting. Dr. Lehman incorporates this as his first secret: “Start with the end in mind.” But what is that end? If it’s not prestige, wealth, or conventional success, what should it be?

From synthesizing these experts’ wisdom, I propose a new “end game” built on three pillars:

1. Character Over Credentials

Dr. Lehman asks pointedly: “As Christian parents particularly, we want our children to have godly character. We want to see them tell the truth. We want them to treat others the way they would want to be treated... Here's my question for you parents. Are you that person you want your son or daughter to be?”

Character isn’t taught through lectures but through what Dr. Lehman calls “spiritual notes”—those daily observations children make about how we live. They’re watching how we handle stress, treat service workers, respond to disappointment, and show generosity. Our character is their most powerful curriculum.

2. Agency Over Achievement

Dr. Amen’s research reveals the danger of what he terms “affordable consequences”—those small, natural results of childhood choices that teach responsibility. “If Chloe forgot her homework,” he explains, “there's no way her mother would bring it to school cuz then she'd only forget it once, right? If she forgot her homework and we brought it to school, we'd always be bringing her homework to school.”

This might seem harsh in our rescue-oriented parenting culture, but it’s actually deeply respectful. It says, “I believe you can handle the consequences of your choices.” Each time we save children from natural consequences, we subtly communicate that they’re not capable.

3. Connection Over Control

Both experts emphasize that influence flows from relationship, not authority. Dr. Lehman warns against “rules without relationship” leading to rebellion, while Dr. Amen states plainly: “You have no influence without connection.”

This represents a seismic shift from authoritarian parenting (“Because I said so!”) to authoritative parenting (“Let’s work through this together”). The former creates compliance; the latter builds conscience.

The Neuroscience of Good Parenting: It’s Not Just Philosophy

Dr. Amen brings crucial scientific validation to these parenting principles. He explains: “The brain is an organ just like your heart is an organ... The scans taught us that most psychiatric illnesses are not mental health issues at all, but rather they are brain health issues that steal people's minds.”

What does this mean practically? That our parenting choices literally shape our children’s developing brains. When we:

1. Model emotional regulation, we strengthen their prefrontal cortex
2. Allow natural consequences, we build neural pathways for problem-solving
3. Provide secure attachment, we support healthy neurotransmitter function

Parenting isn’t just moral formation; it’s neurological formation. Every interaction either builds or diminishes their brain’s capacity for resilience, empathy, and self-control.

The Eight Secrets Reimagined: A New Framework

Dr. Lehman’s “Eight Secrets to Raising Successful Kids” takes on new meaning when we redefine success:

1. Start with the end in mind → What kind of human being do you hope to launch?
2. Expect the best → But define “best” as character, not achievements
3. Give and you shall receive → Model generosity without keeping score
4. Role model → Your life is their primary textbook
5. Live the discipline life → Discipline as self-control, not punishment
6. Stay the course → Have a “port of call”—your family’s shared values
7. Minimize friction → Choose connection over being right
8. Always keep the relationship first → Influence flows from love

Notice what’s absent? Any mention of grades, sports, or extracurriculars. These become vehicles for character development, not ends in themselves.

The Spiritual Dimension: Faith as Foundation

For faith-based families, Dr. Lehman offers crucial wisdom: “Many times I think as Christians, we fail to have those moments with our kids as they grow older about the time that you doubted the very existence of God in your life. That's not an unhealthy conversation. That's a great conversation.”

He challenges authoritarian religious parenting: “For the authoritarian parent who wants to be way too prescriptive with your kids, I'd just like to ask the question, who's making that decision for your kid to follow Christ? You two? It doesn't work that way.”

This suggests that spiritual formation, like character formation, cannot be forced or controlled. It must be modeled, shared, and made safe for questioning. The goal isn’t compliance with religious rules but genuine relationship with God—and that often comes through working through doubts, not avoiding them.

Practical Steps to Shift Your Parenting Paradigm

1. Conduct a “Motivation Audit”

Ask yourself before making parenting decisions: “Am I doing this for my child’s development or to make myself look/feel good?” Be brutally honest about activities, academic pressure, and social comparisons.

2. Redefine Your Bragging Rights

What do you proudly share about your children? Their achievements or their character moments? Start noticing and celebrating kindness, perseverance, honesty, and responsibility more than accolades.

3. Implement “Affordable Consequences”

As Dr. Amen suggests, let children experience natural consequences when the price is small. Forgotten lunch? Let them problem-solve. Missed deadline? Let them face the teacher’s policy. Rescue only when health or safety is genuinely at risk.

4. Ask Different Questions

Instead of “What did you learn today?” try “How were you kind today?” Instead of “What grade did you get?” try “What problem did you solve?” Shift the conversation from performance to character.

5. Model Imperfection

Share your own failures and what you learned from them. Normalize struggle as part of growth. As Dr. Lehman suggests, make your home a “grace-filled” place to fail.

6. Create “Character Curriculum”

Intentionally look for everyday moments to teach specific virtues. A sibling conflict becomes an opportunity to practice empathy. A lost toy becomes a chance to practice resilience. A family decision becomes practice in respectful dialogue.

The Long Game: From Childhood to Adulthood

Dr. Lehman offers a sobering perspective: “We put all the effort in, and then they leave, and we hope.” Ultimately, parenting is an act of faith—faith that if we focus on building character rather than crafting resumes, our children will develop the internal compass to navigate life’s complexities.

Dr. Amen’s brain-based approach gives us confidence that this isn’t just wishful thinking. When we prioritize connection over control, agency over achievement, and character over credentials, we’re literally building healthier brains—brains capable of resilience, empathy, and wisdom.

The bilingual parenting journey shared by Heather offers a beautiful metaphor here. Teaching a second language requires consistency, patience, and the faith that daily small efforts accumulate into fluency. So too with character development: Daily small moments of grace, responsibility, and connection accumulate into a morally fluent human being.

Conclusion: Your Child Is Not Your Masterpiece

In a culture that often treats children as projects to be optimized, we need to recover a more humble, human vision of parenting. Your child is not your masterpiece, your second chance, or your legacy project. They are a unique human soul entrusted to your care for a season.

The true “end game” of parenting isn’t a prestigious college acceptance letter or a six-figure starting salary. It’s watching your adult child:

1. Navigate ethical dilemmas with integrity
2. Maintain healthy relationships through conflict
3. Pursue meaning rather than just money
4. Contribute to their community
5. Face suffering with resilience
6. Extend to others the same grace they learned at home

This doesn’t mean abandoning standards or expectations. As both experts emphasize, children need boundaries and challenges. But it means reorienting those expectations around who they’re becoming rather than what they’re achieving.

Start today. Have the courage to ask Dr. Lehman’s question: “Are you that person you want your son or daughter to be?” Then embrace the liberating truth that your most important work isn’t shaping your child’s future but partnering in the development of their character—one ordinary, grace-filled, rag-ready moment at a time.