It was the first day of vacation. A sense of freedom and joy hung in the air...
Having sent my students off on vacation, I too was looking forward to the rest ahead. Daydreaming about how I'd spend the coming days, I walked slowly down the street. Passing by the school, I saw a boy I knew, shifting uncertainly from foot to foot on the school steps, his whole posture saying he had a problem.
I called out to Aleksei and asked what he was doing at school during vacation. “I need to retake a grade, but I couldn't find the teacher. I've been standing here a while and don't know what to do, maybe the teacher will still come and I should keep waiting....” Alyosha was a diligent student, his grades were always good, and graduation was still a long way off for him. “Do you have a bad grade for the semester?” I asked. “No, the grade is good, but Mom says it needs to be ‘excellent.’”
And right then I understood everything, since I knew Alyosha's mother and her expectations of her son, so to reassure him a little, I said: “I don't think you should wait, this isn't the end of the year after all, you'll still have a chance to raise your grade. It's vacation right now — rest and have fun. What are your plans?” Aleksei sighed and said, “I'll be studying over the break...” And Alyosha really did have plenty to study. Besides regular school, he also attended music school, and there too everything had to be perfect, with nothing less than “excellent.”
Of course, all parents want to see their children happy, healthy, and successful — how could it be otherwise? Our children deserve the best in this life! And we, as parents, form a picture of this “happiness” in our minds and begin bringing it into reality, demanding that everything in our children's lives match our expectations — and our expectations turn into a set of rules and requirements, under whose pressure our children live not only through their entire childhood, but their entire lives. And it doesn't matter how old the child is: 12, 16, or even 40 — to their parents, they will always be their “little one,” which means they'll constantly suffer from their parents' dissatisfaction with their grades, their achievements, or their choices.
Parental perfectionism has robbed many children of happiness and peace, plunging them into fear, stress, and depression. Perfectionism is a desire that has turned, for a person, into a necessity to be or to appear perfect, believing that this is possible. Perfectionists set unrealistically high standards for themselves, which leaves them forever unsatisfied with their results.
Some people mistakenly believe that perfectionism is good motivation. In reality, this is far from true. Perfectionists are constantly dissatisfied with their lives. They fall into depression easily, live in constant anxiety, which can lead to other disorders and health problems. People with perfectionism see their worth in their achievements and fear losing the affection of loved ones in case of failure. In children, this is usually tied to schoolwork and grades.
You very likely have a problem with perfectionism if you:
- are often unhappy with the results of your work;
- put off tasks out of fear of failure;
- can't relax;
- don't want to share your thoughts and feelings;
- try to control everything;
- are fixated on rules, lists, and plans, or, on the contrary, live in complete apathy.
Perfectionists suffer, and life is very hard for them. If the state you're in is keeping you from living a full and happy life, you need help. A counselor can help you restructure your thinking and see your goals and achievements from a different angle.
Perfectionists, suffering from their own problem, make life unbearable for the people around them, and the ones who suffer most, of course, are those who can't stand up for themselves — children. Children of perfectionist parents suffer because their parents:
- set standards that are too high for them;
- criticize them often;
- are constantly dissatisfied with them;
- doubt their ability to complete a task correctly;
- constantly emphasize the importance of order and organization.
According to research, adults who strove for perfection from childhood, trying with all their might to meet their parents' expectations, rarely end up among the ranks of genuinely successful people. The whole problem lies in setting unattainable goals and in the negative consequences of feeling like a failure. Parents, without realizing it, create a state of heightened anxiety in their children. The child thinks they need to try even harder, and as a result, a vicious circle forms.
To protect their child, parents first need to work on themselves and let go of their own perfectionist tendencies. To do this, it's necessary to:
- set realistic, achievable goals;
- break large tasks down into a series of small steps;
- complete tasks one at a time, focusing on just one;
- accept the fact that all people make mistakes;
- find in mistakes an opportunity to learn;
- counter the fear of failure with a realistic view of things.
By following this advice, you'll gradually free yourself from the need to be perfect, you'll gain free time, and you'll feel a surge of energy and a sense of peace. And most importantly, you'll be able to help your child overcome fear and uncertainty, and understand what they want and what they dream of.
Accept your child as they are, with their unique individuality, and teach them to enjoy life.
