The challenges of being a perfectionist, how this might affect your child, and ideas for developing a healthier mindset.
Are you a parent dealing with an overwhelming fear of failure and not-good-enough-ness? If so, you might be struggling with perfectionism. In this episode, Dr. Nanika Coor explores the challenges of being a perfectionist parent, how it can impact both you and your child, and ideas for creating a less perfectionistic environment within which your child can thrive.
Project Parenthood is hosted by Dr. Nanika Coor. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Are you one of those people who everyone thinks has a rose-colored parenting journey, that you’re this amazing parent who has it all together—but inside you’re persistently feeling low levels of depression? You’re able to muster up grit and intense determination to give parenting the best that you have, but you feel like you’re playing the role of perfect parent while struggling with an overwhelming fear of failure? If so—I’m glad you tuned in, because in this episode I’m talking about the challenges of being a perfectionist, how this might affect your child, and ideas for developing a healthier mindset.
Welcome back to Project Parenthood! I'm your host, Dr. Nanika Coor—clinical psychologist and respectful parenting therapist. Each week, I’ll help you repair and deepen your parent-child connection, increase self-compassion and cooperation from your kids, and cultivate joy, peace, and resilience in your relationship with them.
If you’re a perfectionist, you probably worry a lot about other people’s expectations of you, fear making mistakes in front of others, avoid taking action on things if you don’t think you’ll do it perfectly, and if you do get going on something, it may take you a ridiculously long amount of time to finish it. To top it off, the fear of not being seen as perfect likely keeps you from asking for help too—I mean, what if someone thinks you’re weak or you lack intelligence, or that you shouldn’t have gotten yourself in a situation where you need help in the first place?!
Think of perfectionism as a broad personality style that’s characterized by a person’s concerns with striving for flawlessness and perfection and includes harsh criticism of oneself and/or others, along with worries about being negatively judged by other people. Due to having extremely high, unreasonable, and inflexible standards, a perfectionist is usually highly distressed while pursuing their goals. The development of perfectionism is thought to be strongly influenced by a person’s caregiver-child relationship growing up. When that relationship is characterized by pressure, criticism, and unrealistic expectations, you’re more likely to develop perfectionism.
There are three flavors of perfectionism:
The more discrepancy there is between your high expectations and your child’s actual achievements, the more likely you are to be constantly disappointed and dissatisfied at not having an ideal child. If you expect perfection from yourself in raising a flawless child, you might experience parental burnout, creating a situation where you feel exhausted, emotionally drained, unsatisfied, and not good enough as a parent—all of which put you at risk for emotionally distancing yourself from your child.
When your parenting style is perfectionistic, you have a low tolerance for mistakes and may create a tense and controlling environment that can be passed on to the next generation. Your child may begin to become overly cautious and perfectionistic as well—hampering their creativity, curiosity, and resilience that they then pass on to their own kids. By imposing unrealistic expectations on them, they’re more at risk for developing conditions like chronic stress, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and self-esteem problems. By prioritizing performance over personal growth and well-being, the constant pressure to excel can lead children to believe that any failure makes them a failure, causing them to give up, avoid challenges, or engage in self-defeating behavior like cheating in a desperate attempt to avoid that failure.
Perfectionism in your parenting style means your child could become an adult with a deep need for external validation who is excessively hard on themselves, constantly striving to meet expectations, and often feeling a sense of shame and inadequacy. They might view love as conditional, so that the only way they think they can gain acceptance and praise is by being perfect.
It’s important not to confuse perfectionism with a person who sets high, reasonable, and flexible standards for oneself and enjoys the process of achieving those standards. And cautious concern keeps you aware of danger. It’s not helpful—or even possible—to eliminate fear altogether. But helping yourself and your child to move past the fear of failure that comes with perfectionism means cultivating an environment of support and acceptance.
So model being courageous in the face of mistakes. If you try something and it doesn’t work out, be gentle with yourself. Can you try to redo it? Can you try doing something different? When you have the courage to accept your mistakes, you’re helping your child learn to accept theirs.
You can help your child develop the courage to be imperfect and risk trying new things by showing them that you recognize and cherish who they are as a person regardless of whatever their accomplishments are. Listening to your child and trying to understand things from your child’s point of view—without trying to talk them out of it—helps your child feel you are taking them into consideration, not just the outcomes of their performance. Continuously offer encouragement by pointing out the things you appreciate about who your child is. Statements like, “I love how excited you are to read books!” or “I have so much fun baking with you” show appreciation for your child and help them feel worthwhile.
But stay away from praise that implies judgment or evaluation like, “Great job cleaning your room!” or “This painting you made is so beautiful!” Perfecting their performance so that they please others is already a problem for a perfectionist-leaning child who only feels acceptable when they do well. Instead, encouragement helps them develop self-acceptance in spite of their mistakes. Try phrases that acknowledge their process, progress, and their effort rather than simply their output, like “Wow, I see you’ve learned how to make your bed!” or “I’m seeing the way you blended the colors here—how’d you make the decision to do that?”
Practicing self-compassion means intentionally and lovingly directing acceptance and understanding inward toward yourself, and connecting with your own emotional pain in the face of your shortcomings and failures. Instead of judging yourself negatively and feeling isolated and alone, be kind toward yourself and remind yourself that emotional pain is a part of life that every human experiences. Instead of suppressing or hyper-focusing on your emotional pain, try to simply be mindfully aware of it.
When you notice you’ve failed to be a perfect parent, remind yourself that a child with a perfect parent never learns to cope with imperfect humans—which are ALL of the humans. Rather than engaging in tons of self-blame and guilt, forgive yourself. Take responsibility for any problem you’ve caused or feelings you’ve hurt. Apologize, and work to repair the relationship with your child. They will not only survive the mistakes you make, but prioritizing relational repair also strengthens your relationship and models essential relational skills.
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While having high standards as a parent can be a good thing, perfectionist parenting can be detrimental to your child’s well-being and social-emotional development. If you’re struggling with perfectionism you can’t seem to change, seek professional help, as it may be related to an underlying mental health condition or create problems in your relationships.
Even though your intentions might be good, being a perfectionist parent can have long-lasting negative effects like chronic dissatisfaction or feeling not good enough. Instead, focus more on your strengths as a parent than your weaknesses, and create a supportive environment that emphasizes effort, acceptance, resilience, and self-compassion and you’ll be on your way to healthier growth and positive self-esteem for both you and your child.
Do you struggle with perfectionism as a parent? Tell me about it on Instagram @bkparents. And be sure to join me live on Instagram on the second Monday of each month at 1 pm for a Brooklyn Parent Therapy “Ask Me Anything!” I love answering your questions in real-time!
If you have a question for me about parent-child relationships, respectful parenting tips and/or parental mental health, shoot me an email at parenthood@quickanddirtytips.com, leave a message at 646-926-3243 or leave a message on Instagram @bkparents. And you can learn about my private practice working with parents living in New York State at www.brooklynparenttherapy.com.
Catch you next week!
Kawamoto, A., Sheth, R., Yang, M., Demps, L., & Sevig, T. (2023). The Role of Self-Compassion Among Adaptive and Maladaptive Perfectionists in University Students. The Counseling Psychologist, 51(1), 113-144.
Lin, G. X., Szczygieł, D., & Piotrowski, K. (2022). Child-oriented perfectionism and parental burnout: The moderating role of parents' emotional intelligence. Personality and Individual Differences, 198, 111805.
Piotrowski, K. (2020). Child-oriented and partner-oriented perfectionism explain different aspects of family difficulties. Plos one, 15(8), e0236870.
Sorkkila, M., & Aunola, K. (2020). Risk factors for parental burnout among Finnish parents: The role of socially prescribed perfectionism. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 29, 648-659.