Naturally, parents have always wanted their children to do well, both academically and socially. No one wants their child to be the slowest in the class, the last to be picked for a game on the field. Yet for many children, the trend toward fast-track academics makes school a place that they dread, a source of misery they cannot escape for months at a time.

Has that natural worry become an obsession, and what is it doing to our children?