In light of the current college scandals, this episode invites parents to reflect on their own expectations of their children and how they may be pushing their own agendas in unhealthy ways.

In this episode:

• Scandals have been going on forever [1:00]

• The idea of legacy students doesn’t make any sense but donations from alumni can buy favors [2:00]

• Test scores do not matter in the real world — soft skills are much more valuable [4:00]

• Latest scandal revealed the gratuitous level of parental involvement in a child’s life [6:30

• Danger of pushing kids to elite universities is that parental love seems conditional on their children success [8:00]

• Unrealistic parental expectations on children will weigh on them their whole lives  [10:00]

• At a fundamental level, every human feels a need to be accepted for who they are [15:00]

• Parents being proud of their children for who they want them to be  is a big problem [18:00]

• Parents’ sense of self needs to not be reliant upon where their child goes to school [21:00]

• Setting realistic expectations is essential [25:00]

• Parents should focus on raising their children to be good people [28:00]

• Parents who don’t allow their children to fail are robbing them of real learning [30:00]

• Snowplow and helicopter parenting leads to unrealistic expectations of the real world [32:00]

• Constructive criticism is actually an expression of love [33:30]

• The lack of a modern day “village” leads to a myopic parental view [39:00]

• Unconditional parental love is much more important than achieving academic goals [45:00]

• Why parents need to stop saying “I’m proud of you” to their children [48:00]

• You’re not a good parent because your kid got into a specific school. In fact, it may create mental problems for your child [53:30]

• Self validation is rare. We need people to love us for who we are and not our accomplishments [55:00]

• Other people’s success is not your failure [57:00]

• Acting as though every child in the tribe is your tribe would lead to a much happier society instead of competing [1:00:00]

• Care is the minimum standard for any success [1:03:00]

• The world needs all kinds so embrace it [1:06:30]