Here’s a story from yesterday’s Washington Post:

Adolescent alienation isn’t a new phenomenon. But the unhappy
teenagers clinical psychologist Madeline Levine sees in her practice
aren’t merely going through a developmental phase, she writes.

In
her new book, "The Price of Privilege" (Harper Collins, $24.95), Levine
says that over-involved parents who pressure their children to be stars
— in school, on athletic fields, among their peers — have created a
generation that is "extremely unhappy, disconnected and passive."
Unabashedly materialistic and disinterested in the wider world, they
are both bored and "often boring," she writes. A large number suffer
from depression, anxiety and substance abuse.

 Well-off people who push their kids too hard to meet exaggerated expectations are doing more harm than good.  And money does nothing but make matters worse:

Affluent teens, she writes, are among those least likely to receive
treatment for emotional problems, because many of their parents are
loath to mar the public image of the perfect family.

One recent
study found that upper-middle-class girls appear three times more
likely to suffer from clinical depression than those from other
socioeconomic groups…

    This American story is a cautionary tale for China, where economic and social competitiveness, and inequality, seem, to me, to be much greater than in the US (for the obvious reason that, with a vastly larger population, there is a more intense struggle in China to seize the opportunities that exist).   Parents in both countries would do well to keep passage 24from the Tao Te Ching in mind:

Stretch onto tiptoes
and you never stand firm.
Hurry long strides
and you never travel far.

Keep up self-reflection
and you’ll never be enlightened.
Keep up self-definition
and you’ll never be apparent.
Keep up self-promotion
and you’ll never be proverbial.
Keep up self-esteem
and you’ll never be perennial.

Travelers of the Way call such striving
"too much food and useless baggage."
Things may not all despise such striving,
but a Master of the Way stays clear of it.

    In other words, lighten up!