That number comes from a survey of students at high-achieving schools across the US.

Researcher Jennifer Breheny Wallace spent years studying what she calls "toxic achievement culture" — the environment where performance becomes the lens through which children understand their own worth.

And the finding that stopped me wasn't the anxiety statistics.

It wasn't the burnout numbers.

It was that one.

70% of kids believe their parents value them more when they succeed.

Not know. Believe.

These aren't kids with absent parents or difficult homes. Many of them have parents who are present, attentive, and deeply involved in their lives.

But somewhere between the Saturday morning games and the results texts and the drive home conversations — the message landed differently than it was sent.

Your child is watching you more carefully than you realise.

They notice what you talk about on the way to training.

They notice whether your mood after the game matches the scoreline.

They notice how long the silence lasts when they make a mistake.

None of it is intentional. Most of it is invisible to the parent doing it. But children are extraordinarily good at reading the emotional weather in the room — and they are building their understanding of their own worth from every forecast.

Wallace's antidote to this is a concept she calls "mattering."

Making a child feel that they matter unconditionally — not because of what they achieved, but because of who they are.

It sounds simple. It isn't.

Because the signals that communicate mattering aren't in the big moments. They're not in the speech you give after a hard loss or the hug after a great performance.

They're in the small ones.

The question you ask on the drive home. The thing you notice first when they come off the field. Whether your first comment after a game is about them — or about the game.

I work with parents who love their kids completely and would be devastated to know their child is one of that 70%.

Most of them are doing one or two small things — consistently, invisibly — that are sending the wrong signal.

Not because they're bad parents.

Because nobody showed them what the right signals actually look like.

That's what The Unshakeable Kid is built around. The framework for becoming the parent your child reads as unconditionally in their corner — not just when they perform, but especially when they don't.

$47. Instant access.

Instant actions to put into place today!

Make your kid Unshakeable, no matter what life throws at them.

Coach Mick