THE PERFECTIONIST CHILD

Children who are perfectionists can suffer from their own mindset. We discuss how to spot perfectionism in children and gentle ways to help, improving their  confidence and quality of life.

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Perfectionism is an often misunderstood problem that affects some children. If your little one is becoming a perfectionist, you may have seen some of the signs already. They may be unable to sleep because they’ve left something untidy and they may get overwhelmed and burst into tears from not being able to complete a task perfectly. It can be very difficult for them to get satisfaction from anything because ‘perfect’ can be such an unrealistic expectation. As parents, it’s our responsibility to try to spot these kinds of things early and to do whatever we can to help our little ones.

THE PRESSURE OF PERFECTIONISM

There is a big difference between standards and perfectionism. If your child has high standards, and expects themselves to try hard and perform well, that’s a good thing. If they’re aiming to be perfect at all times, they’re bound to be disappointed from time to time. The targets that perfectionists set are totally unrealistic.

To make it worse, they then pile extreme amounts of pressure on themselves to hit these targets. More often than not, they will miss these targets (because they’re nearly impossible to hit) and they will focus entirely on what went wrong instead of celebrating what went right. To make matters worse, if they do achieve their goal, they will find it very difficult to acknowledge this achievement. They’ll even put this success down to luck or a ‘once-off ’, insisting that they won’t be able to do it next time.

PERFECTIONISM COMES IN DIFFERENT FORMS

Research suggests that there are three distinct types of perfectionism that your little one may be experiencing.

Self-oriented perfectionism