Dismantling Toxic Teen Achievement Culture: My Conversation with Denise Pope, Ph.D

This week’s podcast episode* is focused on something that has literally been keeping me up at night— getting my kids into college. My firstborn child is headed to Boston University in the Fall. But I’m not gonna lie … the process was excruciating. 

Someone who has been ringing the alarm bells on what has become a “toxic achievement culture” in the U.S. is the amazing Denise Pope, Ph.D.

Dr. Denise Pope is a senior lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, and co-founder/strategic advisor at Challenge Success. She is the author of, “Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students (Yale University Press, 2001), which was awarded Notable Book in Education by the American School Board Journal, 2001, and co-author of Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids (Jossey-Bass, 2015).

Denise and I get VERY real on why even the most well-resourced kids are suffering, crashing, and burning in this insane drive to get into the “right” schools.

Gems:

✨How to help your kids define “success” in terms that contribute to actual satisfaction and well being. [4:16]

✨The game changing, life changing magic of sleep … and why most teenagers aren’t getting enough of it. [9:30]

✨The one thing you can do as a parent to cultivate authentic resilience in your teen. [24:11]

✨What the college ratings system does and does not reveal about “top” universities in the U.S. [30:02]

Resources:

Connect with Denise Pope:

https://www.facebook.com/ChallengeSuccess
https://www.instagram.com/challengesuccess
https://www.linkedin.com/company/895857
https://www.linkedin.com/in/denise-clark-pope/

Books / articles:

• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker, Ph.D.

• A “Fit” Over Rankings: Why College Engagement Matters More Than Selectivity

• “P.D.F. Tips” Challenge Success

*(Note: If you do not have kids, or don’t yet feel any kind of low-grade panic about the College Industrial Complex, this might not be the episode for you. On the other hand, this is affecting so many young people, it is an issue that will eventually touch us all.)