I am not the parent but the comment does have some merit (and I say this as a Canadian). For a lot of things we simply gloat that we’re better than the US and then end up thinking that our work is done.

Classic case is health care (‘look, we spend less than the US and have free healthcare’) where instead of looking up to countries with better healthcare outcomes than us, we look down on America and act smug. Other cases include our climate record, and post secondary education.