Born that way, and some parental influence.

Most are people pleasers by nature. Some of that is innate. Some of it is nurtured.

It’s genetics. Several adopted kids here and one of them has a crazy drive, has had it since forever. Others, not so much and nothing we do can help motivate them.

Anonymous wrote:OCD from her fathers side combined with anxiety from mine. A teacher commented that the standards she holds herself to cannot be easy. I agree and it is something we are subtly working on.

I was going to say anxiety. My DS has such high expectations for himself and it is anxiety based. It makes me sad to see him so hard on himself.

Peer group. When they were young, I was somewhat of a tiger mom. I made sure that they excelled in school, were in the top reading groups, got into the gifted program, etc. once they started middle school, I significantly backed off. Now I check their grades online periodically and say something if I see a missing assignment, but I don’t do anything extra, but I don’t have to. Early on they started to view themselves as among the top performers in their school and made friends with similar kids. It’s now part of their identity, so it means something to them to be high achievers (at least academically).

OCD from her fathers side combined with anxiety from mine. A teacher commented that the standards she holds herself to cannot be easy. I agree and it is something we are subtly working on.

Anonymous wrote:Expectations of doing their best. Expecting them to finish what they start. School is their job, not screens. Their father and I were always a united front. Love them for who they are and don’t compare kids.

Nah. That's just you thinking you did something and patting yourself on the back. How old are your kids? If younger, you have no idea. Plus you are talking about school, life is different. You can expect all you want, and the kid won't give a crap. It is interesting how some parents just can't accept that most of it is just who the kid is. I told my overachiever dd not to drink, I expect her not to drink, yet, she drinks and does stupid crap! And she is also motivated about school. Spent Friday and Saturday night studying. Next week I might get called by the police, since she might try to get a cow drunk in someone's field in north MD. Or decide to plow some field with her car! And we live far from fields!
See, being motivated and doing dumb sh*t are not exclusive of each other!

DH is highly motivated. I am motivated about certain things, academics... DS has anxiety! That is what it is. I wish he would relax a bit. He has an LD and is senior in college, and utter overachiever. Imagine what takes you an hour to learn? It takes his 3. He does 4!

Genetics

For my DD, it's genetics. I'm lazy and always doing the bare minimum. She's an overacheiver, striving to be the best at everything. DD2 is more chill and goes with the flow (more like me)

Expectations of doing their best. Expecting them to finish what they start. School is their job, not screens. Their father and I were always a united front. Love them for who they are and don’t compare kids.

I have an overachiever in one specific domain (athletics). It is because he loves it, plain and simple. I don't think it had much to do with us. We told our kids early on that we had no interest in pushing them to play, so if they wanted to excel, it was on them. One of our kids stayed with rec level, but the overachiever just continually pushed and still pushes himself. He practices by himself for hours. I honestly think practicing calms his mind. He gets into some sort of zen zone.

I have literally never felt zen or calm about athletics in my life and do my daily exercise out of obligation only but I see it with him. I am a little jealous to be honest, would make my daily slog more enjoyable.

Immature parents are actually a huge influence on first borns being over-achievers.

fear

Do you think genetics or parenting played a larger role, or both equally?