One Saturday morning, my 6-year-old daughter was making a birthday card for a friend.
She kept writing the letter H for Happy Birthday, then deciding she didnt like how it looked.
She was getting frustrated, and I wanted her to stop using up all the paper.
Hey, whats going on?
I know your friend is going to love any card you make becauseyoumade it.
No, hes not!
she screamed, tears welling in her eyes.
I cant do it!
She crumpled up another page.
But Id never really seen perfectionist tendencies in her, and this worried me.
I know, on a deep level, how a desire to be perfect can have paralyzing consequences.
(Spoiler: Yes, parents can perpetuate perfectionism, but yes, we can change.)
Where does perfectionism in kids come from?
As children, we are at the mercy of our caregivers.
This is very scary to children because it is not following the normal patterns.
The child experiences the parents responseboth positive and negativeas a direct response to the childs behavior.
The child is not taking into consideration context or the parents mood outside of the relationship.
This creates a sense of uncertainty.
This time when I threw the pillow I got spoken to harshly.
I wonder what I did wrong when I threw the pillow this time.
So this is laying the foundation for how magical thinking can create perfectionistic tendencies.
Tell me more about magical thinking.
Today I will wear blue.
The problem is that the blue shirt is not what actually caused moms good mood.
Perfectionism is, at its core, an experience of not being safe.
Do parents perpetuate perfectionism in children?
Think about the example of a small child waiting excitedly for Mom to come home from work.
Mom is in a bad mood.
This is everyone as a parent at some point.
Letting this go without discussing it with the child could perpetuate perfectionism.
I want to stress that it doesnt matter how old the child is.
Are there any other changes that parents can make?
Compliment the process of [your kids efforts] rather than the product of their efforts.
We want to praise effort, not outcome.
That sounds awkward, but I think you get the idea.
We want to find a specific thing that they did that expresses the trait we are complimenting.
As children, we are at the mercy of our caregivers.
This is a hard question to answer.
I am inclined to say very young.
An anxious two-year-old is more likely to develop perfectionism later.
We can look for signs of the child trying to make us feel better when we are upset.
Recently, my husband and I had a disagreement and my one-year-old daughter was making noises.
For instance, I noticed my daughter crumpling up paper because she felt her writing wasnt good enough.
Be a safe, neutral, reflective presence.
Basically we want to gently reflect back at the child what you think they are feeling.
This helps them to develop the emotional language so that they can talk about how they are feeling.
