In a world where so much of childhood is now seemingly organized around striving to build the perfect college résumé — securing top grades, the best travel team, the highest test scores — parents sometimes struggle to find a balance between encouraging an adolescent to achieve without pushing too hard.
From the outside, it can be hard to distinguish between a conscientious high achiever and an unhealthy perfectionist. The difference is the motivation that drives the behavior. While healthy achievers enjoy striving for excellence and cope well with setbacks, perfectionists are motivated by a fear of failure and reach for high goals in an effort to prove their worth to others.
Mounting evidence shows how destructive perfectionism can be. This tendency can be found at the root of mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders and, in the most extreme cases, even suicide, according to Gordon Flett of York University in Canada, one of the world’s leading researchers on perfectionism.
At its worst, perfectionism acts as a trap. In an effort to maintain that flawless facade, a perfectionist must hide any vulnerabilities. It can hold someone back from asking for help.
After Stanford soccer star Katie Meyer died by suicide this month, her parents, Steve and Gina Meyer, spoke out in a heartbreaking appearance on NBC’s “Today” show. While there’s no way to know for certain why a young person would take their own life, Katie’s mother, wearing her daughter’s sweatshirt, talked about how the pressure to be perfect may have contributed: “There is anxiety and there is stress to be perfect, to be the best, to be No. 1.”
Growing research finds that rates of perfectionism in young people have skyrocketed since the early 1990s, with today’s young adults reporting a striking 33 percent increase over time in the level of perfectionist expectations placed on them by others. The researchers point to several factors that may be contributing to this rise, including “a more competitive and individualistic society” that has led to excessive pressure on young people to achieve in all aspects of their lives: academics, extracurricular activities and social interactions.
In a recent paper published in Clinical Psychology Review, researchers call “socially prescribed perfectionism,” or perfectionist thinking brought on by the heavy weight of society’s rising demands, “a significant public health concern that urgently requires sustained prevention and intervention efforts.” Lead author Flett warns that parents need to be aware of the enormous mental, social and academic costs of perfectionism, and not to dismiss them as benign.
“The costs of needing to be perfect far outweigh the benefits,” he says. “A child’s perfectionism can jeopardize well-being and physical health, but it could also be a recipe for burnout, underachievement, and loneliness, among other things.” Flett points to the public mental health struggles of self-described perfectionists such as Michael Phelps and Simone Biles.
Parents can help temper perfectionist tendencies by bringing “perfectionist thinking” out into the open, helping an adolescent regain perspective and learn to accept their limitations, says Flett, co-author with Paul Hewitt of “Perfectionism in Childhood and Adolescence: A Developmental Approach.”
Here are some ways parents can start that important conversation at home:
Build awareness
Perfectionist thinking takes root in childhood. Evidence suggests just raising awareness about perfectionism — what it looks like in action and its potential costs — can help to lessen its hold. One way to do this is to introduce the concept of “good enough,” as in not everything has to be pursued at the highest level all the time. Sharing stories of other people who have struggled with perfectionism can also help children see its negative impact and learn from it. “This emphasis on building awareness is not a one-time thing,” Flett says. “It should be a focus throughout childhood and adolescence as pressures mount.”
Normalize distress
Young people need to hear that it is typical and normal to feel distress from time to time, that negative emotions are a normal part of life and not a sign of personal defect, Flett says. Validating emotions, such as saying “That sounds really hard” or “I can understand how you feel,” can help to normalize them and allow a child to feel less alone. Caregivers can talk about their own failures, what they learned, and how they managed their own distress and gained perspective by, say, reaching out to a trusted friend.
Encourage self-compassion and self-forgiveness
Practicing self-compassion can buffer against perfectionist tendencies. Help your child find a go-to line they can say to themselves, as they would a friend, to drown out the critical voice in their heads, as in: That’s okay, Jamie, you’re doing your best. Forgiving yourself for being human doesn’t mean ignoring failures. It means widening your perspective, aiming to do better but without the energy drain of inflicting additional and unhelpful criticism.
Model healthy coping
A large part of the harm of perfectionism comes from our reactions to it. Says Flett: When experiencing a personal setback, a parent can model healthy coping out loud, as in, “It’s time to stop beating myself up. Everyone makes mistakes.” Children notice when we’re overly critical and hard on ourselves. Modeling for your children how you cope with mistakes and failures is critical to fostering healthy coping skills in them. Parents often feel pressure to be a perfect role model, but perfection isn’t what children need. “Doing your best and showing you care is not only enough,” Flett says, “it’s ideal.”
Jennifer Breheny Wallace is writing a book for Penguin Random House on achievement culture and the toll it is taking on young people’s mental health. Follow her on Twitter @wallacejennieb.