I decided when my children were very young (infants?) that I was not going to talk to them about “expectations” for academic achievements. I had a theory that it was highly unlikely that they would not intuit that learning and knowledge are important to me and my husband: the house filled with books, the parents reading the books, the parents with advanced degrees, things the parents talk about. And I also thought it highly likely that they would inherit my and my husband’s predisposition to anxiety. Both things ended up being true. And my daughters confirmed, sometime during their teen years, that even though we never said “school is important!,” they got that message. So, I feel guilty enough for giving them the genetic inheritance of anxiety and depression; I’m glad I didn’t pile it on by talking about achievement.