When Your Child Struggles While Everyone Else’s Seems to Shine

If you’re a parent, there’s a special kind of pain that comes when your child is struggling while everyone else’s kids seem to be thriving.

Their friends are getting into top schools, landing prestigious jobs, stacking up accolades.
Your child is… anxious. Lost. Burnt out. Maybe barely hanging on.

On the outside, you’re supportive.
On the inside, you’re asking:

• What did I do wrong?

• Did I give the wrong guidance?

• Why is it so easy for everyone else’s kids?

Let’s talk about that.

1. The illusion of “everyone else’s superstar kid”

When parents talk about other families, they usually share one narrow slice of reality:

• test scores

• college admissions

• job titles

• promotions

You rarely see:

• panic attacks at 2 a.m.

• the strain in their marriage

• the lonely, perfectionist child who feels like a disappointment if they’re not #1

• the nights they cry in the shower because “having it all” still feels empty

It’s the same dynamic as social media: highly curated highlights, almost no context.

So when you compare your struggling child to someone else’s “superstar,” you’re often comparing your full, messy reality to their edited one. It’s not a fair fight—and it’s brutal on your nervous system.

2. Different souls, different wiring

Sometimes within the same family you’ll see a sharp contrast:

• One child glides through school, crushes exams, and hits every expected milestone.

• Another wrestles with anxiety, questions everything, and doesn’t fit the mold at all.

It’s tempting to ask:

“Why can’t they both just be like that? What did I miss? What did the universe intend here?”

But not all gifts are academic. Not all paths are linear.

Some kids are wired with:

• Deep sensitivity and empathy

• A strong sense of justice

• A refusal to push themselves into boxes that feel dead inside

They may not look like “success” on a LinkedIn profile at 22, but they might be the ones who later:

• build community

• do meaningful service

• create environments where others feel seen and safe

You don’t know the ending of their story yet. Judging their entire life by one chapter—especially the early, messy ones—is premature at best, cruel at worst.

3. The quiet violence of comparison

When your mind is spinning with:

• “Every other kid is doing well.”

• “Why is mine the one who’s struggling?”

• “What will people think of me as a parent?”

…you’re not just suffering yourself. You’re subtly transmitting that anxiety to your child—even if you never say it out loud.

They feel the weight of:

• your disappointment

• your fear

• your unspoken “Why aren’t you more like…?”

And ironically, that pressure usually worsens their struggle.

One of the most powerful shifts a parent can make is moving from:

• “How do I get my child to match the world’s measuring stick?”
  to

• “How do I support the unique human in front of me to grow into who they actually are?”

4. Holding a vision without clinging to an outcome

As a parent, your influence is huge. But you are not the author of your child’s life.

Your role is more like:

• gardener than sculptor

• guide than engineer

You can:

• Hold a vision that your child can find work that is both meaningful and sustainable.

• Believe in the possibility that they can be both fulfilled and financially okay.

• Model practices that build resilience: meditation, breathwork, decent boundaries, self-compassion.

• Offer a “landing pad” when they’re overwhelmed.

What you can’t do (no matter how hard you try) is:

• Guarantee they’ll follow a particular path.

• Prevent all suffering.

• Undo the wiring of their nervous system with a single pep talk.

The spiritual move here is subtle but profound:

Hold the frequency of possibility without gripping the specific form.

“I don’t know how this works out yet. But I am choosing to believe that there is a path for you that fits who you are, even if it looks nothing like what I imagined.”

That belief alone changes how you show up.

5. Making peace with your past parenting decisions

Every parent eventually looks back and wonders:

• Was that the right school?

• Should I have pushed more / less?

• Did I give them bad advice?

From where you stand now—with years more experience and spiritual work—of course some choices look questionable.

But at the time, you:

• were working with the information you had

• were influenced by your own upbringing, culture, and fears

• genuinely wanted the best for your child

You gave the guidance your capacity allowed in that moment.

Maturity looks less like replaying those scenes with self-blame, and more like:

• owning what you’d do differently now

• apologizing if needed

• and then focusing your energy on who you want to be today in your relationship with your child

The question isn’t “Did I ruin everything?”
It’s “How can I love and support them wisely from this point forward?”

6. Your child feels your nervous system more than your words

You can tell your child:

“It’s okay, I believe in you.”

But if your nervous system is screaming:

This is a disaster, you’re behind, I’m terrified for you…

They’ll feel that more powerfully than anything you say.

This is why your own spiritual practice is not a luxury—it’s part of your parenting.

• Meditation gives you a place to process fear without dumping it on them.

• Breathwork helps you downshift out of panic before you pick up the phone.

• Mantras like “Life is unfolding as it needs to” or “I trade the uncertainty of the future for the certainty of faith” give your mind somewhere higher to rest.

When you regulate yourself, you become a steady presence instead of another source of pressure. That alone can be a lifeline for a struggling young adult.

7. Trusting their curriculum

If you’re reading this, you’re likely on your own spiritual path. You’ve probably discovered that:

• your most painful seasons were also your most transformative

• the places you “failed” taught you more than the places you excelled

• your nervous breakdowns contained the seeds of your breakthroughs

Why would it be any different for your child?

You don’t need to romanticize their suffering or pretend it doesn’t hurt. But you can begin to trust:

They have their own curriculum with life.

Your job is not to eliminate every challenge. It’s to walk beside them with:

• as much love as you can muster,

• as little comparison as you can manage,

• and a growing faith that their story is still being written.

One day, you may look back together and realize that the season you’re in now—this painful, uncertain stretch—was the exact doorway they needed to become who they came here to be.