Dr. Sarah (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:41):

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Beyond the Sessions segment of the Securely Attached podcast where we answer your listener questions. Today we have Emily Upshur here. Her wisdom is waiting for our question of the week. You ready? Em?

Dr. Emily (00:59):

Ready.

Dr. Sarah (01:01):

Okay, so this question comes from a parent who’s been listening to the podcast for a while and she writes, my son is a junior in high school and has always been a high achiever, but lately he’s been struggling with academic stress and seems overwhelmed by perfectionism and a fear of failure. It doesn’t help that college applications are looming next year. He’s also unsure about his college path, which is adding to his anxiety. My husband and I are being really mindful about not putting pressure on him about academics, but no matter how much we reinforce that he’s doing just fine. He seems to be generating so much pressure for himself from the inside. How can I balance wanting to support his goals without adding extra pressure and what strategies can I suggest to help him manage his time, set realistic goals and build confidence in himself? I feel like this mom’s question is very, very common. I mean, obviously going to college thing is its own thing, but I just think there’s a ton of toxic achievement stress that kids internalize from so early on that this mom who has a junior in high school could also have any age child and be asking the same question.

Dr. Emily (02:18):

Yeah, I mean I think eighth goes, that’s a really important way to frame it, which is what are we focusing on grades and external achievement or internal growth and learning and how do we fight against frankly a systemic issue? This is a thing that’s really, even if at home, I feel really for this parent who’s like, I’m doing the best I can at home. I’m really trying to not put on too much pressure, but I still live in the world where my kid has to go to school and I want them to go to college one day, and there’s a lot of these external pressures that are probably finding their way within my child and how do we help support that? I think it’s a really important thing for us to be thinking about.

Dr. Sarah (03:10):

And I think there’s a couple different pieces to her question that I feel like might be helpful to break down. One is this idea that she’s describing her son as a high achiever and who has historically struggled with academic stress and perfectionism and how that can manifest at any point and how we address that because that’s a very specific piece. It’s more common I think, than most of us realize, and I think there are, like you said, there are systemic pressures, there are potentially family system pressures, there are just internalized pressures that can fuel that. So we could talk a little bit about that and how to counteract that and help a child become more aware of those tendencies, those perfectionistic thoughts and urges and create some strategies for supporting them to challenge that because a little bit we’re kind of touching in to anxiety and some cognitive interventions on bossing back some of those thoughts and exposure and response prevention stuff. So we’ll get into that I think would be helpful. Emily, this other piece that I feel like is worth flagging and coming back to is when you are a parent and you can’t control, you’re doing your best to control the pressure valves at home, but there’s other things happening that are translating into your child having stress and when do you want to let them navigate it and when do you need to step in and be a buffer to some of these systems? And then the third piece is she wants some specific suggestions for helping him come up with some tools to reset his expectations, but also be effective in managing his time and building some confidence.

Dr. Emily (05:11):

Yeah, I mean the first response I have, which is not going to be surprising to our listeners is also really figuring out how internally as the parent you feel about these things, because as much as you can say, I’m don’t really care about, I just want them to be a learner. And if they get a really bad grade, you might feel that at pressure and anxiety too. Like, oh my God, is my kid going to get into the right college? There’s a lot of pressure as a parent, and I think really identifying that within yourself, taking a beat, really figuring out how you’re going to cope with that yourself, right? Cope with external successes or failures or expectations, and then how we communicate that to the child I think is really important. But if we can slow it down, I think that really helps with a more authentic communication because I do think this listener is probably doing the best they can. I wonder if we can help with slowing it down so that they are talking about the process, not the outcome, that they are able to hold hiccups in these areas and they’re able to communicate that and they feel more confident doing so.

Dr. Sarah (06:29):

Yeah, because I think, I’m just trying to think of an illustrative example of what you’re talking about just to give people a picture in your mind. And what I keep thinking is, okay, I’m a parent When I’m calm and regulated and I’m thinking big picture about how I want to raise my kid and what my values are, I definitely am like, I don’t want to put pressure on them and want them to be more interested in learning and finding their kind of intrinsic interests and being a critical thinker and maybe being outside of the box, but actually when my child comes home, especially kids who have their own internal stressors. So if you have a kid who is perfectionistic or leans that way, whether or not you’ve tried to counterbalance that at all, they might still come in and be like, I am so upset.

(07:23):

I got an 87 on this test and I needed to get a 98 and everything is going to fall apart. And then their anxiety triggers our anxiety and maybe that anxiety isn’t that we also think they should have gotten a 98, but it’s, oh my God, they’re panicking and I need to soothe their anxiety right now. And so I need to sort of rescue them. And so I get in there and I help them problem solve, how do they get that 80? How do they bring it up to the 98? And so all of a sudden we’re rescuing.

(07:53):

And we’re getting pulled into the weeds of the content of the worry, and we’re like having a powwow with their worry brain, not our child like our whole child. And so that, we talk about this a lot when we talk about anxiety disorders in general and the loop, especially with kids, because when kids feel anxious, that feeling of anxiety is really uncomfortable. And so in an effort to get out of that feeling, they elicit their parents or their environment, which usually is made up a lot in large part of their parents to help them get out of that feeling.

(08:34):

And then when parents do rescue them from the feeling and hit that anxiety snooze button for them, they feel relief and it reinforces this sort of cycle of them continuing to seek out your rescuing every time they feel anxious. And so what might be happening in these moments is that we’re actually unintentionally maintaining our child’s internal distorted narrative that it is dangerous to not get the 98 because we keep helping rescue them when they don’t get it because we’re actually responding to their anxiety, not the grade, but it doesn’t matter. It keeps the cycle going anyway.

Dr. Emily (09:18):

Yeah, I mean, I say as you were saying that, my thought is again, the slow down, but also if there’s one thing I can say to a parent is what you’re describing when we assuage anxiety is we focus on the outcome and not the process and being, if there’s one thing I think you can hang on to a tool almost as a parent is curiosity and not invalidation. So if your kid says, I only got an 87, and you could say, Ugh, that it sounds like that’s really upsetting to you, and then you can be curate, what do you think happened? Right. And I think that aside from saying, okay, so did you study enough? What happened? It’s a very different tone. It’s the same question, but that sort of validating that it might be not what they wanted without trying to erase that that’s not what they were going for.

(10:15):

And then being curious about it, but not to find the answer, but just to sort of help them really slow down and think, what did happen? I wonder if I brush, did I not study? To me, it’s so much more about the process of figuring out this as a learning experience and some of these hiccups as growth, if we skip to the solution, we don’t get to see the growing pains that you can do and you can help your child tolerate as they learn. And learning is the goal here, right? Learning about their own self, their own behavior or their emotion regulation, not so much the outcome.

Dr. Sarah (10:53):

I think we forget that perfectionism sort of rigid perfectionism is a form of anxiety. We as a culture idealize it and so we don’t pathologize it, but at the root of perfectionism is not, there’s a difference between being interested in excellence and excelling and actualizing goals and perfectionism. Perfectionism is really a specific thing and it is very rigid. It’s very black and white and it is tied to self-worth in a way that is very, very different than intrinsic motivation to kind perform at one’s best because that’s a flexible state.

Dr. Emily (11:46):

Well, it’s also a flexible approach. I talk to parents of high school kids about this all the time, which is kids in this profile often have, just to give this a real example, often have a study method and they will not move from that study method. They are like, Nope, I’m going to do this same way, these flashcards. And instead of saying, I wonder if I tried something different, if that might help. I think again, speaking to your rigidity, we want to promote self-growth and learning about yourself and being open to exploring what might be helpful or might not. And rigidity is the opposite of that. Rigidity is sort of, alright, well we’ll just study harder, doing the same way, doing the same thing. And I think that’s another piece that I think parents are like, okay, that sounds good, because our society says if you work harder, good things will come. And I think we always feel like if you’re more flexible, if you try different approaches, even if you don’t externally succeed, you’re learning a process about yourself and you’re opening up the possibility that something might help or help you understand where you went.

Dr. Sarah (12:59):

And it’s hard because in doing this, we have to be willing as parents to set the tone but also just in general have to be willing to dismantle. Some of these is kind of very crystallized success markers that our society has valued for a very long time and continues to not just value but really does assign power to grades. And I’m not trying to say that grades don’t matter and that you should just be the antidote to perfectionism is to be like grades don’t matter and don’t worry about any of this. That’s actually going to be equally destabilizing for an anxious child because grades are very often a really, they’re rail posts, they’re bumpers of the bowling alley that help them feel control. And so saying they don’t matter is like saying throw your sense of control completely out there. It’s too big and wide and open, but helping being, again, to your point about curiosity, I use this a lot when I’m working with perfectionism in the kids that I work with where I will ask them, so what is a good grade to you and what is a success in school? I even have asked people when they’ll say something like, I’m not smart, because a lot of times when they don’t meet these criteria that they’ve set for themselves, they’ll say things like, I’m stupid or I am never going to be able to do this or I’m going to fail at everything. Very platitudes, huge swaths, huge sweeping statements. And so I’ll say, well, what makes someone smart? And I’ve had a lot of kids say, well, getting A’s.

(14:40):

A’s are what you, if you’re smart, you get A’s. And I’m like, well, in everything, well, maybe not everything. I’m like, so you need to get an A in absolutely everything in order to be smart. Are there people who are smart that don’t get a’s like, well, yeah. So it’s a little bit of just being interested in understanding what their schemas are around some of these definitions of grades or other metrics of performance and slowly helping them build flexibility around how they define those things. It’s really hard to do, especially with, I mean this is a junior in high school we’re talking about, so this has been set for a while.

(15:26):

With younger kids, this is a little bit easier to untangle, unpack and disentangle these things, but I do think that’s a big piece of the work. And honestly, if you have a high school kid, especially a junior in high school where it’s about to hit a pretty tense year or two in terms of the external pressures coming on super hard because this is time of development and well really time of our society where they have to start really focusing on grades, really navigating the college application process and that stuff. And that’s really hard. I mean, it’s really hard for these 16, 17-year-old, sometimes even 15 year olds to be doing this. It’s really developmentally so intense. And so I do think that this is a time where having some place to process some of this and to really actually address perfectionism as a thing that needs real intervention, not just, I don’t know, perfectionism is not as benign as people think because I think as a society, again, we glorify that and so we don’t look at the darker side of it, but in reality, people who engage in very strong perfectionist tendencies tend to have very high anxiety.

(16:50):

They tend to be quite rigid in their thinking and their behaviors and their coping strategies, and they also tend to internalize more than externalize. And Emily, I dunno if you want to talk a little bit about the difference between externalizing and internalizing in our world, but sometimes I feel like internalizers, there isn’t as much of an opportunity to catch the red flags until they hit some type of tipping point internally where something really is now they’re really in pain or they’re really suffering. And so we miss a lot of opportunities to help them because they look so nice on the outside.

Dr. Emily (17:32):

We know that perfectionism or academic anxiety is typically an internalized notion. This parent seems attuned and knows what’s going on, and maybe it seeps out sometimes, but it’s still within the larger umbrella of they’re really stressed out, but they’re doing okay. There’s no crisis right now on the outside, and I think that that also does lend itself to more pressure. A lot of these kids feel like, oh, not only do I have to be a high achieving, but then I have to hold it together because that’s just what I do. That’s one of the things that is part of my presentation is that I don’t stress out my parents because I get reinforced for my good externalized marks and grades and that type of thing. I think what I would say is there are skill sets to address that these internalizing. You touched upon it a little bit by opening up schemas and sort of bossing back and doing a little bit of, we call it exposure with response prevention.

(18:35):

So if you have an intrusive thought of perfectionism or an intrusive thought of a bad outcome that might happen if you don’t perform that there are really actually cognitive skills that we can work with and we do all the time. That is a set of skills that I say to this parent, not in a scary, but I think it’s a life skill, and I think this is such a nice opportunity while your child’s still in your home, while your child is still sort of in your orbit before they’re launched into college, and to give them a set of skills that they can implement. It doesn’t really change to your point in college or in your first job. And that internalized of all the internalization of all the pressure really does take away from your life satisfaction. Ultimately, even if you’ve achieved all your goals, you’ve gone to this college you wanted, you got the job you wanted, you’re doing really well and you still don’t feel so great.

(19:34):

And we see that a lot in young adults. And so I think thinking about how it’s really fortunate that this listener is able to say like, oh, my kid’s still at home. I can help them with this skill. I can seek help for them with this skill, or I can sort of start to do a little bit of problem solving myself is a really important seed to start to plant. Now we are both saying this has been established over time, but it’s not too late. It’s never too late to sort of address some of those more unbound things that we don’t always see. We might suspect our kid is struggling with that. They might just once in a while come home really upset about a grade. But I think to your points, a bit of the tip of the iceberg with internalizers. So we need to ask a couple more questions, explore it a little bit more and provide a little bit more support even if we’re not totally sure, right. What’s going on with them.

Dr. Sarah (20:35):

I think you made a very good point. The difference between an internalizer and an externalizer is that an internalizer, when we see the tip of the iceberg, we see a very teensy tiny tip of that iceberg. It looks like a little ice cube floating in the ocean, right? We’re like, oh, no big deal. Right? They’re good. And usually with real perfectionism, we see if you were to look below the waterline, a huge iceberg glacier under there because they’re really good at keeping it hidden under the water with an externalizer. There’s still a lot under the waterline, but that glacier is big. They make it very, very, very easy to spot because they are losing it. They are acting out, they are getting so frustrated that they refuse to do their homework and you’re having fights. They externalize pressure outward and it’s messier, it’s louder, it’s way more friction and conflict, so it’s harder to miss.

(21:41):

And for better or worse, I think that’s very stressful as a parent to have a child who externalizes pressures that they’re feeling around academics or you name it, whatever. Usually the root is still anxiety based, but when they’re expressing their anxiety in this externalizing way, yes, very stressful as a parent to have to hold all of that, blah, but it’s not possible to ignore that this is a kid who’s needing some help, whereas an internalizer, they’re so, they look so great and that tiny little ice cube floating on the water, you’re like, look at them, go, they don’t need me at all. And I think sometimes, unfortunately, things can really hit a breaking point for them when it’s like we missed so many opportunities to support them. And so you actually see, I mean, I don’t want to over anxiety anybody, but you see much bigger cries for help that feel much more out of the blue with kids who chronically internalize anxiety and look on the surface, everything is going fine. So I just want to make sure to flag that I actually do think it is really important as a parent not to become unduly anxious about a child who looks like they’re doing fine. They might actually just be doing fine, but if your spidey senses and other signs have indicated there is perfectionism here and there is rigidity and there is, I do see things kind of just below the waterline exploding out every once in a while that is worth paying attention to. It really is.

Dr. Emily (23:30):

And I would say just as a sort of final note to cap that is, it’s also there is some ebbs and flows, and I think there could be a period of time that doesn’t mean it’s chronic and forever that your child is having a lot of perfection. Everything seems really, really important, and that happens in adolescence quite a bit, but it’s okay to sort of have a stronger intervention for a short period of time. If that feels like a really, really critical time. It doesn’t mean it’ll be forever. It doesn’t mean by intervening, you’re implying it needs a longer term solution. I think it’s really important to recognize that.

Dr. Sarah (24:12):

And I would say working on perfectionism, treating perfectionism is actually not, it’s very treatable. It is really, these are kids who are highly resourced, typically cognitively, and if they really only need a few, they need a place where they feel safe enough to be messy, and they need a place where they are willing to challenge some of their rigid belief structures. And that’s, I think, the hardest. Those are, I think, the two hardest barriers to entry. And then once you get that, I think they tend to do really well in therapy because, or if you are going to practice some of these interventions at home, but helping challenge the rigid concrete belief systems, the all or nothing, that’s really, I think that’s the easiest part of the work. It’s not completely easy, but once there’s an openness and a buy-in for this idea, most kids can really adapt it quite easily.

Dr. Emily (25:20):

And utilize those skills.

Dr. Sarah (25:22):

And they feel a lot of relief when they realize what’s going on. So that’s why, just to go back to this example that we were talking about earlier with the grade, if we try to help them get the grade that they’re looking for to reduce their anxiety, we can maintain the messaging. Ultimately, the grade is the more important piece. But if we can help them kind of break down, well, what are my beliefs? What do I think will happen if I keep this 87 or whatever I said the grade was, what would that mean? And give them an opportunity to try to really get clear on what their, then what, if I get the 87, then what?

(26:11):

I will have a mark on my transcript forever if I have a mark on my transcript as a sophomore in high school or a junior in high school, then there’s a bit of a thought exercise here. And having them, they’re catastrophizing in their mind and having you support them in articulating what the actual cascade of intrusive thoughts is. If this, then this, if then this, if then this and you get to the very end and it’s like, I’ll never ever get into college and I’ll be living in your basement for the rest of my life and none of my friends will want to hang out with me. And then you can sort of help, oh, well, no wonder this is so scary.

(26:56):

And then you can sort of work your way backwards and challenge some of these thoughts. Or even just having them name it all out loud helps them kind of put into perspective like, okay, do I really think that’s going to happen? Okay, probably not that part or not that part. Okay. Sometimes saying it out loud and you have to hear it out loud is a great challenge to the intrusive thoughts. These are just some strategies. There’s a lot more. But I do think there’s a lot of resources out there too for challenging some of these perfectionistic thinking. So hopefully this mom finds this helpful. And any of you guys who notice perfectionism in kids, I hope you find this helpful. Thanks so much for all of your wisdom.

Dr. Emily (27:44):

Yeah, good to be here. Always.

Dr. Sarah (27:47):Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.