This week, a story broke exposing the largest college admissions scandal prosecuted by the Department of Justice. Wealthy parents were caught using bribery to get their children into elite schools like the University of Southern California, Yale, and Stanford. Some paid off test administrators to change their kids’ test scores or in some cases, have the tests taken for them. Others paid off athletic directors to make it look like their child was attending as an athletic recruit. Now, the FBI is cracking down on all fifty people who were involved, including parents, SAT test administrators, college athletic directors and more.

This story says a lot about a corrupt college admissions process, misuse of wealth, power and privilege, but it also exposes a growing epidemic in parenting today, one that is ultimately harmful for the child: overparenting.

Parents care so much about their child succeeding—or at least appearing like she is succeeding—that they will spend half a million dollars to get their child into college. This is not right. It is not moral. And, it is not good parenting. The kids caught in the crossfire of this scandal won’t get to go to an elite university after all. What will…