Are you secretly competing with other parents? Here's how it's hurting your child

Parenting in the age of social feeds and achievement culture can feel like running a never-ending and quiet contest. Be it a picture-perfect lunchbox, the “right” extracurriculars or top school placement, it is all on display and it is easy to compare but a growing body of research shows that when parents constantly compare themselves (and their kids ) to other families, it does not produce better outcomes instead, it damages children’s mental health, motivation and sense of self.

What “competing parents” actually doParental competition takes many forms from comparing grades and test scores to measuring whose child has more awards or tutors, curating social media to show only triumphs, pressuring children to attend extra classes or shaming kids by comparing them to other children. Researchers call related behaviours things like social comparison , parental shaming and at the extreme, helicopter/overparenting. These behaviours often originate from parental anxiety about social status, fear of missing out, or the desire to secure future advantage for children.

How parental competition harms kids

• Lower self-esteem and increased anxiety: A 2025 Frontiers in Psychology study investigating parental social comparison found that when parents frequently compare their children upward (to “better” kids), adolescents’ self-esteem suffers and upward comparison mediates that negative effect. In short, kids internalise parental comparisons and feel worse about themselves. The study warns that constant parental benchmarking can “partially mediate the negative impact of parents’ social comparison on adolescent self-esteem.”
• More tutoring anxiety and pressure to perform: A 2021 research paper in Frontiers in Psychology studied how parents’ tendency to compare drives tutoring anxiety — the stress parents feel about arranging extra lessons — which then shapes the strategies they push on kids. The study found a clear chain where parental social comparison leads to parental anxiety that in turn leads to more intense (and sometimes counterproductive) tutoring behaviours. The result is that children face amplified pressure and less autonomy over learning.
• Overparenting (helicoptering) increases internalising problems and reduces self-efficacy: Meta-analyses and systematic reviews consistently link overinvolved parenting with worse outcomes for children and young adults. Meta-analysis and systematic reviews show associations between helicopter parenting and higher levels of anxiety, depression, school burnout, reduced self-efficacy and poorer regulatory skills. Crucially, these negative effects appear across cultures and persist into emerging adulthood, meaning the harm is not only short term.
• Motivation shifts from mastery to performance: When parents emphasize outperforming other children, kids shift from learning for mastery (curiosity, improvement) to learning for performance (grades, status). Studies show that performance-focused environments increase fear of failure and reduce risk-taking, which hurts deep learning and creativity. The underlying mechanism is well described in social-comparison literature and reveals that upward comparisons (always seeing someone “better”) undermine intrinsic motivation and increase avoidance.

A little healthy pride in your child’s progress is natural but when that pride becomes a scoreboard or when your household measures success by someone else’s highlight reel, children pay the price with less confidence, more anxiety and less love of learning. The research is consistent and stark, revealing that comparing kids to kids and parenting to parenting undermines the very things we most want to give our children, that is - confidence, curiosity and emotional health.

If you have found yourself in the comparison trap, you are not alone and the fix begins with awareness. Catch the urge to compare, ask why it matters and replace it with curiosity and support. Your child will thank you for it long after the trophies are boxed away.