Even before he could talk, my son displayed signs of constant perfectionism. He was a sensitive child, and when he was two and a half, we could tell he could pronounce many words, but he would hold back on saying them out loud until he was sure they were correct.
But as we had more time together during the Covid isolation, I could see how much frustration his striving for perfection had caused him. If his teacher drew his attention to be quiet on one day, it was all he could talk about in the evening at home. And that perceived failure frequently turned into an outburst.
I had been following all the advice experts gave on overcoming the fear of failure, like applauding his concentration, emulating persistence, and sharing instances in my own life where I had failed, but things turned out okay. However, nothing seemed to work.
Since my son’s high sensitivity is a character trait he’ll have all his life, I researched to figure out how best to support a sensitive child who strives to be perfect.
Here’s what I learned.
The hallmark signs of perfectionism in a sensitive child
Your child’s pursuit of perfection can lead to many accomplishments. However, it can become toxic when your sensitive child shows these two hallmark signs: rigid and distorted way of thinking + risk avoidance. These two harmful habits can lower your kid’s quality of life if they happen often.
Here are examples of harmful perfectionism and how it can prevent your child from enjoying childhood:
- Setting unrealistic standards for themselves
- Anxious, overly emotional, or even panicky when they fear they can’t meet standards
- Overgeneralizing failures and ruminating (“I fell off my bike. I’ll never be good at running on a bike. I’d might as well give up now and stop wasting my time. I’m not like other kids.”)
- Always seeing the glass half empty (“I am terrible at soccer. I messed up every ball in the game yesterday.”)
- Self-deprecating thoughts (“I messed up. I can’t do anything right because I get too emotional. I hate myself.)
- Negative self-talk (“I’m so stupid“)
- Always waiting for the next sign of validation that they are doing it well
- Frequent emotional outbursts because of minor mistakes, to the point that your child either procrastinates or gives up trying.
Related: How to Help Your Highly Sensitive Kid Manage Criticism
Warning signs of harmful perfectionism that many parents miss
Many parents of sensitive children blame high sensitivity for their kid’s behavior. But sensitivity is a neutral character trait. By itself, it is not bad for your kid. So, if your kid displays the behaviors below, perfectionism and not high sensitivity might be the root cause:
- Struggle to adapt or avoid new situations
- Gets angry or beat themselves up when they receive negative feedback
- Highly critical of others or holds a grudge when someone lets them down
- People-pleasing behavior
- Low self-esteem or feelings of inadequacy
- Have a hard time forming or maintaining relationships or friendships.
How to help your sensitive child to get over perfectionism
1. The Pareto Principle
According to the 80/20 principle, 80% of consequences in a given situation result from 20% of the causes. Vilfredo Pareto, an economist from Italy, discovered this principle while gardening ad seeing that only 20% of the peapods that he had planted produced 80% of the harvest. He then linked it with the Italian economy, where 20% of the population controlled 80% of the land and wealth.
How does this apply to your perfectionist child?
Say your child holds everybody else to a high standard and takes things personally when a peer crosses their boundaries (“Liam draw lines on my notebook. I’m not friends with him anymore”).
How can you apply the 80/20 rule here?
One way is to discuss what friends do and don’t do. For instance, you can ask your kid questions like:
- What does being a friend mean?
- Does Liam share his things with you?
- Do you play together?
- Does he give you small gifts?
- Does he say sorry when he makes a mistake?
Then, let your kid decide whether he wants to be friends with the other boy, but remind him that even friends make mistakes sometimes (about 20% of the time, according to the Pareto principle).
Let’s see another example. According to the 80/20 rule, to be successful, your kid needs to focus most of their energy on a few things they want to improve.
Say your child wants several things: to spend time perfecting homework, to improve social skills, and learn to skate. Let’s now suppose that, most of all, they want to get better at making friends. According to the 80/20 principle, your child should focus 80% of their free time on getting better at making friends. That means reducing the time amount on homework and other activities.
Spending less time on other activities can increase the risk of mistakes, which brings us to our second strategy.
Related: How to Help Your Lonely Highly Sensitive Child Make Friends
2. Low-stakes mistakes
Encourage your child to start with something with minimum consequences, like not being the first to hand in a project in class. Or say they always dreamed of taking guitar lessons but don’t have a musical ear and fear they’ll make a fool of themselves. But what if they attend guitar lessons just for fun?
Your child might feel uncomfortable and anxious about not doing something perfectly or not doing it all. However, they’ll learn that the world is not going to end. For this to work, they need to practice and practice feeling those uncomfortable feelings.
When your child tries this technique, it’s best to help them identify what emotions come up and respect their feelings. Your child can even journal those feelings by drawing or writing them down. Let’s now see some examples of journal prompts.
3. Perfectionism journal prompts for your sensitive child
Your child can keep a journal where they can draw or write about how they feel. Here are some examples of journal prompts for combating perfectionism:
- Why am I doing this? Is it really necessary? Do I have to do it now?
- What can I do instead of perfecting my homework? It has to be something I enjoy to forget about my worries. Examples: meet a friend, go for ice cream, go on a bike ride with dad.
Other emotional regulation strategies to prevent harmful perfectionism can work depending on your child’s age. For instance, you can talk to them about mindfulness, being grateful for what we have and the people in our lives, and addressing negative self-talk (what triggers it and what to think about instead).
Related: 3 Crucial Rules To Help Your Child With Big Emotions
4. Break down goals and focus on one task at a time
If your perfectionist kid avoids complex tasks, one way to help is to focus on partial successes. To do this, break down goals and focus on solving one problem at a time by exploring and testing solutions.
Say your perfectionistic child avoids talking in front of the class because it seems daunting. Here are smaller goals that they can try to achieve:
- Recite something in front of the mirror
- Present a project in front of the whole family at home
- Play pretend that you are the teacher and have your kid answer questions that the teacher might ask in class (ask your kid to prepare the questions)
- Decide how many times they want to speak when presenting a group project
- Start answering in class only about subjects they are passionate about.
5. Encourage your sensitive child to have a growth mindset (“I can’t YET”)
By adopting a growth attitude and trusting in the power of the word “yet,” you can fight perfectionism. The term “yet” can assist our perfectionistic kids in transitioning from “I can’t” and “I will never” to “Let’s give it a try.”
Consider implementing this rule: every project or task has three versions – first draft, second draft, and final version. We believe that two drafts are necessary because giving too many suggestions for improvement after the first draft might make your kid feel disappointed and give up trying.
Then, apply this three-step action plan:
- When your child works on a project, kindly ask them to create the first draft. This enables your youngster to try, make mistakes and correct them.
- When they complete the first draft, encourage further improvement (but not perfection) by saying that you don’t think this is their finest work YET and that they should start working on the next version. Give specific and short feedback on what they can improve (just one or two aspects per draft, so they don’t feel overwhelmed).
- Praise them for the final version of their task by offering concrete remarks about what you like.
Your child will be delighted with their progress and realize they don’t have to worry about getting it right from the first time or all the time. They will also learn persistence leads to progress, achievements, and self-confidence.
6. Take care of yourself
Setting high standards for ourselves, whether in our parenting or professional achievements, can help our kids in many ways. However, be aware of the risks.
Are you constantly frustrated when things don’t go as planned? Do you shun challenges out of fear of failing? Children can learn much about resilience and enjoy a challenge by observing us handle daunting or unpredictable situations. They will be better able to manage and deal with their own obstacles in life if you model for them a “have a try” attitude and the fun and learning that comes with it.
References
- Carmo, C., Oliveira, D., Brás, M., & Faísca, L. (2021). The Influence of Parental Perfectionism and Parenting Styles on Child Perfectionism. Children (Basel, Switzerland), 8(9), 777. https://doi.org/10.3390/children8090777
- Iranzo-Tatay C, Gimeno-Clemente N, Barberá-Fons M, Rodriguez-Campayo MÁ, Rojo-Bofill L, Livianos-Aldana L, Beato-Fernandez L, Vaz-Leal F, Rojo-Moreno L. Genetic and environmental contributions to perfectionism and its common factors. Psychiatry Res. 2015 Dec 30;230(3):932-9. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2015.11.020. Epub 2015 Nov 17. PMID: 26611155.
- https://oxford-review.com/blog-research-perfectionism/
