“Never Enough” with Jennifer Wallace

When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic – And What We Can Do About it: A conversation with Jennifer Wallace

Wednesday, April 24 | 7-8PM
Secondary Campus Sanctuary
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Join Oakwood School for an evening of conversation with award-winning writer, Jennifer Wallace, to discuss her New York Times best-selling book Never Enough: When Achievement Pressure Becomes Toxic – and What We Can Do About It and the rise of “toxic achievement culture” overtaking our kids’ and parents’ lives.

In Never Enough: When Achievement Pressure Becomes Toxic – and What We Can Do About It, award-winning reporter Jennifer Breheny Wallace investigates the deep roots of toxic achievement culture, and finds out what we must do to fight back. Drawing on interviews with families, educators, and an original survey of nearly 6,000 parents, she exposes how the pressure to perform is not a matter of parental choice but baked in to our larger society and spurred by increasing income inequality and dwindling opportunities. As a result, children are increasingly absorbing the message that they have no value outside of their accomplishments, a message that is reinforced by the media and greater culture at large.

Through deep research and interviews with today’s leading child psychologists, Wallace shows what kids need from the adults in the room is not more pressure, but to feel like they matter, and have intrinsic self-worth not contingent upon external achievements. Parents and educators who adopt the language and values of mattering help children see themselves as a valuable contributor to a larger community. And in an ironic twist, kids who receive consistent feedback that they matter no matter what are more likely to have the resilience, self-confidence, and psychological security to thrive.

Packed with memorable stories and offering a powerful toolkit for positive change, Never Enough offers an urgent, humane view of the crisis plaguing today’s teens and a practical framework for how to help.