Do you expect your child to get all As in school? Is it good to set high expectations for your child?
In her book 13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Do, Amy Morin says that a perfectionist parenting style is potentially damaging to your child. Mentally strong parents realize that everybody has different strengths and that mistakes are necessary for growth.
Here’s why you should encourage your child, but not push them too far.
Mentally Strong Parents Aren’t Perfectionists
One of Morin’s tips for parents is not to expect—or worse, demand—perfection from their children.
Morin clarifies that having high expectations is healthy; high expectations will push your child to do their best, and build their self-esteem by letting them know what you believe they’re capable of. However, a perfectionist parenting style has the opposite effect: It sets impossible standards that will discourage and frustrate your child. Even worse, if you expect perfection, you might inadvertently teach your child that mistakes are unacceptable; that any mistake will lead to punishment and rejection. Therefore, it’s important to push for greatness, but not perfection.
(Shortform note: Psychologists say that perfectionism and anxiety are closely linked. This is because anxious people often worry excessively about potential mistakes and shortcomings, fearing some kind of terrible consequences if anything goes wrong. Then, when they fail to meet their own impossible standards, that failure reinforces their anxiety because they conclude that they’re just not “good enough.” When anxious parents project such fears and insecurities onto their children, it leads to the harmful situation that Morin describes above.)
The author adds that mentally strong parents understand that their kids aren’t going to excel at everything they do. So rather than push their kids to be the best at everything, they focus on helping them do the best they can do. One simple-yet-effective practice is to praise the child’s efforts, rather than their results—this teaches the child that it’s important to always try their hardest, even if it might not lead to the results they’re hoping for.
For instance, suppose your child struggles with math (as many people do). Even after putting in honest effort and getting extra help at school or home, perhaps they still get a B in math class. A mentally strong parent would recognize that the B was the best they could do, and is therefore a praiseworthy grade; a perfectionist parent would scold and punish the child for not earning an A, further damaging their self-esteem.
| Perfectionist Parents Are Unsupportive Another way to consider the issue of perfectionist parenting is to think in terms of support. Are you supporting your child’s talents and interests, or are you trying to push them toward what you would want in their position? In Grit, psychologist Angela Duckworth presents a spectrum of parenting attitudes ranging from unsupportive to supportive. She explains that unsupportive parents don’t recognize their children’s individuality and try to push them toward what they (the parents) would do or would want for themselves. For instance, an unsupportive parent might try to force their child to join the Boy Scouts or a sports team because it aligns with the parent’s interests. This also applies to perfectionism: An unsupportive parent might demand perfect grades because they regret not working harder in school—or, conversely, they were gifted and did earn perfect grades, so they see no reason why their less-gifted child can’t do the same. On the other hand, supportive parents do what Morin describes above: They accept their children’s unique strengths, weaknesses, and interests. Therefore, supportive parents don’t try to force their children to become idealized versions of the parents; instead, they help their children toward goals and decisions that are appropriate for the children. |
