The actress Tracee Ellis Ross has a famous, successful mother in the multiple Grammy Award winner and Motown legend Diana Ross. You might think that someone that successful would care a lot about success. The driven parent drives their children—to get good grades, to win games, to be the strongest, prettiest, or most popular, to follow in their footsteps. Their high standards extend right down through the college their kids go to or the profession they pursue.
But Tracee got lucky. Her mom did it right. Most parents would ask their kids, “How are your grades?” “Did you win?” “Are you number one in your class?” But after school, Diana Ross would ask, “Did you do your best? How do you feel about it, Tracee?” Tracee—who, amid some fits and starts, went on to become a very accomplished actress—would explain that her mother’s emphasis taught her an essential perspective shift: “how to navigate a life through how it feels to you, as opposed to how it looks to everyone else.”
What matters more than your kids’ grades in school is the priorities they pick up and the values they absorb. So that’s the question: Are you teaching them that test scores matter or that learning counts? Are you teaching them that success is winning arbitrary competitions or that it is becoming the best version of themselves? Results don’t matter—not the obvious ones, anyway. What counts is the person your kids are shaping themselves into and the things you do along the way to help them.