I grew up a perfectionist. Maybe you did, too. My report card displayed a lovely and satisfying line of ninety-nines and E’s for “excellent.” This evolved into my expectation for myself, and my parents were certainly pleased with my performance. Later entering college, I was a national merit scholar, along with music and academic scholarships- when you stacked it all together, the school paid me to attend.
But let’s back up and dig in a little bit. By high school I was beginning to grow into the belief that I needed to hover above reproach. I’d always scored perfect grades and won contests that I entered. There wasn’t room or margin for error. I hadn’t been given much opportunity to experience failure or flaw in my schoolwork, athletics or other pursuits up to that point. In tenth grade, at the same time that I was class president and sporting those beautiful report cards, I also started struggling with remaining in the classroom for the full class hour due to stomach issues. I was developing irritable bowel syndrome. I went to the doctor and she said there was too much pressure and expectation on me. My dad proudly explained to her that I put all that pressure on myself. As he said it, you could tell he was happy with the high bar I set for myself. The doctor looked exasperated in response; I could see that my dad didn’t “get” what she was trying to convey. He was so pleased with my grades and performance that he couldn’t see how anxiety and a need to prove my self-worth was beginning to interrupt my tummy and nervous system. Today, I still occasionally have to make a quick exit from a room because of my stomach. However, I have learned to help calm it down a bit, and to trust myself in stressful situations.
Gifted children who don’t receive accelerated differentiation are especially at risk of developing perfectionism. When children are put into learning environments that are too easy, they can continually produce perfect scores without much effort. They receive all of the praise and awards that goes along with it, and it becomes hard for them to relinquish that perfection. They may learn that their value is in those perfect scores. It feels scary to make mistakes. The early years are when we are supposed to have healthy and safe opportunities to practice making mistakes, while the stakes are low. A quick example of being placed in the right-fit education environment: Lin Manuel Miranda. (link to a CBS 60 Minutes interview from 2017.) He tested into a school for highly gifted children at age five. In that environment he wasn’t capable of being the best at everything, as can happen for gifted kids. The school was able to keep him challenged.
The other thing that can happen for gifted kids is that adults around them praise those lovely and compliant results. This tells the child that the results are important and excellence in performance will earn them approval. They learn to value those stellar results over their own self-care, over their joy, over their comfort, over their rest. They must maintain that perfection at all costs, and there are two ways to do that. One is to work too hard on things to ensure perfection, though true perfection is elusive and always just out of reach. The other way is to not start at all, and allow opportunities to pass by because of the risk of failure.
Unhealthy levels of perfectionism fall under the umbrella of anxiety. When things finally do get challenging, perfectionists tend to stop trying for fear of failure. In some cases, the only way to maintain the “undefeated” status is by not trying anything new or intimidating. Perfectionists don’t tend to be risk-takers. With that in mind, perfectionists can easily turn into underachievers, always staying safe.
So, what can we do about it?
Advocate for differentiated learning for your bright or gifted learner. If they can score a “99” in everything, then the learning environment may not yet be appropriately challenging. It can take a good deal of advocating and pushing to get most public schools to differentiate, especially if the child needs radical acceleration. In the teacher’s defense, they are supervising a lot of kids. Know that in advocating you are doing something completely appropriate for your child. It isn’t “snow-flaking” or “helicoptering” to secure for your kid an appropriate education. Some ideas- offer to bring in and provide the differentiated learning since the teacher may be too busy to create and provide it. Beast Academy is a great math program. If your child is beyond the class pace in math, you could provide the book or computer program for your child to work on during math class. Make sure you are pushing for curriculum compacting. This is where the teacher lets you do the advanced work instead of the regular work, not in addition to it. Children drown in too much busy work. Or, look into some of these after school online enrichment programs such as ones listed here. But if it is in addition to school, make sure they really enjoy it. It is truly soul-sucking to get out of seven hours of school work that didn’t meet your needs and then be expected to take on more work. Subject acceleration within the school is also a possibility, though again, it will often take a (worthwhile!) fight.
Praise effort, not results. Grades don’t matter. The effort matters. Really. A 100 grade that involved zero effort? meh. A “B” where your child really put in some work? Amazing. I say this like it’s easy. I’m a work-in-progress on this.
Model making mistakes. Perfectionist kids tend to have perfectionist parents. They are watching and learning from you- allow yourself to try something new and make mistakes in front of your kids. Demonstrate how to shrug off a mistake with grace. Think about your response, your heart rate and your attitude when things go awry.
Teach your child how to half-ass it. This is a hard one for me, a recovering die-hard perfectionist. But it is really, really important. Think about it- teachers, parents, posters on the wall, culture all say, “always do your best.” But a lot of our gifted or twice exceptional learners are black and white thinkers. When they hear, “always do your best,” they take it seriously. They think you mean it. But you don’t. That means doing everything to your very best ability, using all your effort all the time. This is NOT how to thrive and succeed in life! Stop this now BEFORE college and career. When you do the dishes in the evening, you don’t clean as though preparing for photos to be taken to post the house for sale. There is a different level of cleaning effort needed whether you are just going to bed or are preparing to host an open house. Or take homework, for example. Your child’s Language Arts course may count one certain assignment as 5% of their homework grade. Your child needs to learn not to spend 3 hours meticulously creating an essay that is only worth 5% of their homework grade. Knock it out, and be done with it. If you studied hard for a test that is pass/fail and you score a 99, that’s a hint that you actually spent a little too long studying. Recalibrate next time to score more like an 85 on the pass/fail. That still leaves plenty of margin. One step to help a perfectionist dip their toe into the waters of “half-assing” it, could be trying a Wreck This Journal. It’s a journal where pages get ripped, dragged through dirt, and more. The nature of the process of purposely creating a little chaos and mess can be a great start to living with and tolerating imperfection.
Do your own personal work. If you have a really difficult time with making mistakes, it may help to talk to a therapist about it. As we figure out and process how our own childhood hurts and assumptions have shaped us, we can be more intentional going forward.
If you have a child who is getting stuck in the paralysis of perfectionism, you might appreciate the Wall of Awful metaphor developed by Brendan Mahan. Sometimes the hardest part is just getting started. If they can take that first step, no matter how small, then they are practically halfway there.
If you make a mistake today, see if you can view it as a teaching opportunity for your kids. Don’t forget to keep loads of grace for yourself now and always.
Christina
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