Rachel Turner, Parenting for Faith Pioneer at Bible Reading Fellowship, told Premier's News Hour parents need to focus more on who their child is, not what grades they get or what place they come in a race.
She was speaking after children's charity Barnardos told parents to 'wake up' and stop putting pressure on their families.
It found, of the 2,004 children questioned, many felt they would not succeed in future.
The study:
- 2,004 parents asked with children 11-18 and 2,004 children 11-18 years old asked
- 17% feel confident about the future
- 63% of parents admit their expectations of children range from high to too high
Turner told Premier's News Hour: "I think we're going wrong when we tell children that success is really important, we're saying that if you don't succeed you're falling short of acceptable.
"What we can do is say who God has made you to be is important and your strength of character is something that will get you to where you want to be."
Sixty five per cent also said that grown-ups are 'not very good' at telling them they believe they can succeed.
Turner said parents are putting too much pressure on children: "I think some of it is that we've shifted some of our levels of what we're looking for with children from characters to success.
"So parents begin to praise doing things, as opposed to being characters and individuals."
She said they should not be ashamed to tell their children stories of when things did not work out for them.
"We often hide stories of failure from our children, but there's so much that God teaches us through failures," she said.
"To normalise failures we can begin to change how we speak and begin to make success much smaller as a goal."
Listen to Premier's Hannah Tooley speak to Rachel Turner here:
