379. Q&A: How can I support my child who struggles with perfectionism?

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 everybody. Welcome back. This is the Beyond the Session segment of the Securely Attached podcast, and we are going to be answering listener questions, and I have Dr. Emily Upshur here to lend us her wisdom.

Dr. Emily (00:55):

Hi. Hey. Good to be here.

Dr. Sarah (00:57):

How are you?

Dr. Emily (00:57):

Good.

Dr. Sarah (00:59):

This question, I’m tempted to read it in a British accent because it is from someone from the UK, but I’m going to spare you all. But she writes, “Hi from the UK. Love your podcast. Find it so helpful. My daughter is five, almost six, a perfectionist like myself, and struggles with self-confidence and self-esteem at times. She’s very bright and capable, but puts so much pressure on herself so nothing is ever good enough in her eyes. I try to validate her feelings when she isn’t happy with something she’s produced or made rather than dismiss her feelings, but she feels it so inwardly, it really gets her down at times. She almost has a view of herself that is so extreme from the reality that she is an amazing human, fantastic sister to my other daughter and absolutely acing school. How do I boost her confidence to make her realize how amazing she is doing without just overriding how she’s feeling? She can also demonstrate anxious emotions at times. I have loved your podcast on space, so I’m keen to work with her to protect her inner voice as she grows up.

Dr. Emily (02:05):

Great question. I love you.

Dr. Sarah (02:09):

It is a great question. I see this … First of all, I think that this is … I want to normalize a little bit that kids are prone to frustration when the idea they have in their mind doesn’t match up with what they’re able to produce on paper. And I think this parent totally sees that there’s a developmentally appropriate amount of that and that she’s seeing in her daughter kind of it starting to take a toll on the inside, which I can recognize as being like, “That’s hard to watch.” And I can see it making a parent take pause and be like, “What can I do? ” And feeling like this is an important thing to address. But I don’t know. I guess my question for you, Emily, is where do we draw the line between what is perfectionistic tendencies in kids that is sort of developmentally typical and when does perfectionism start to impact the sense of self, impact confidence or mood? And where do we say there’s more to be done here?

Dr. Emily (03:27):

Yeah. I mean, I think when I was this listener’s daughter is five and that’s really young. So what I first want to say is I get it because you’re like, “Why is she so critical? She’s just so little. Where has she learned that? That feels really a little worrisome. I get it. I get why this question is being asked.” And at the same time, I think to your point, normalizing there is some developmental appropriateness to this, but there’s also what we call sort of fixed mindset versus growth mindset. And I think this is a really good example of that, of sort of trying to integrate more of that growth mindset sort of narrative and conversation and words sort of into this child’s sort of vernacular to be able to help her see that making mistakes or not having someone be quote unquote perfect is like overcompensating like, “Well, that’s great.

(04:25):

You tried something different. Let’s be praised and sort of really pay attention and be really keen observers of growth. How can you grow if you don’t mess things up and how can you grow if things aren’t a little bit messy along the way?” And I think that nothing about this listener’s child is alarming to me in any way. I just think it’s very familiar actually, but I do think we have to be really proactive about countering that narrative with that growth sort of mindset saying, “You don’t know it yet or you didn’t learn it already.” And sort of highlighting that because I think the fixed mindset can get us into a little bit of a reinforcing circle of negativity. The other piece before we move on, I want to say developmentally at this age, you see a lot of rigidity. So like my other normalization here was developmentally, what I’m talking about in terms of growth mindset does require some sort of like mental flexibility, which is hard at this age. So I think I would say both/and.

Dr. Sarah (05:38):

Well, because as you’re talking, what I’m thinking of is, okay, it’s the thinking about the right tool at the right time. I think teaching growth mindset and teaching cognitive flexibility and teaching perspective taking and teaching, you know, reassuring self-talk, all really important. But we also have to think about when do we do that skill building and we have to think about emotion regulation, right? So if I’m a kid, I’m a five year old kid, I have this picture in my mind of this drawing I want to draw and in my mind it is chef’s kiss. It is amazing. And I get in front of my piece of paper with my amazing crayons and I sit down and I cannot get this thing that’s in my head onto the paper. What is that experience like for me? It is very frustrating. I might actually get quite literally like physiologically hyper aroused. I might move into fight or flight. My frustration tolerance is already low because I’m five, but I also am in the middle of trying to execute an idea and that idea by definition is like arousing.

(07:00):

It activates me. And so when I’m moving faster, right, think about like a miles per hour, by revving the engine with an idea, I’m hitting the gas, which makes me go faster, which means when I hit something that thwarts me, it could really flip my car because I’m moving really quickly. And so we have an activating idea met with like an abrupt conflict that throws me off my course. That’s going to lead to dysregulation no matter what. I don’t care what kind of kid you are, like that is hard at five. And so in that hot moment when I’m now dysregulated, I’m in fight or flight because I was trying to do something and I couldn’t do it and I was moving fast and I got derailed, that’s probably not the best time on the parents’ end to offer growth mindset strategies, right?

(07:59):

You can validate, but I would kind of say to yourself, “Ah, I want to help build growth mindset in this child and I’m going to do it another time. I’m going to put that in a before the next hot moment, not at during this hot moment.” And so we can feel a little more agency in saying, “These experiences are going to give me cues as to what I can support my child in in the long run, but I might not need to do that right now.” So I just want to give parents permission because how many times have you told your child who’s having like a frustrated moment that like they couldn’t get their, whatever, the thing just right and say like, “You’re going to get there eventually.” Or, “It’s hard now, but it gets easier.” And they’re like, “Come on. ” And they want to.

Dr. Emily (08:47):

Yeah. I think that’s a really important sort of how to breaking it down into the nuts and bolts because one of the important things that I think you’re distinguishing is like process versus outcome, right? And I think in those moments, a tool for parents is to talk about the process that they’re going through. “Oh, this is really frustrating. Oh, it’s so hard when you can’t get your ID on the paper. “That’s sort of like validating, staying in the moment, but like a tool just to keep in your mind is you can talk about the process without judging the outcome and you can really empathize with the process, but that is also kind of part of growth mindset, right? So I think that exactly your point, I don’t want you to teach a lesson in a tough moment.That’s always hard, but I do think that sort of being both validating in the moment, but a little bit of that sort of future oriented,” Oh yeah, this is so frustrating. You didn’t get it yet. Oh, you didn’t get the skill of being … Like, oh, those markers don’t feel good right now. They’re not making it happen. “Right?

Dr. Sarah (09:54):

Yeah. But also I could see a kid in that moment really needing to not have us try to fix it, not fix the drawing, whatever it is, the thing, but not fix the rage.

Dr. Emily (10:11):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (10:11):

And I think sometimes when we try to tell our kid,” It makes sense that you’re upset, it’s okay that you’re upset. “I mean, I think we should say that. I think that’s helpful and validating, but then when we keep going, if we do too much validating in the moment, I think it runs the risk of a kid feeling like we are trying to usher them out of the moment and get to a place where they are feeling better about it. And I think sometimes it’s like okay to be like, ” Oh, I think we should just, maybe we do want it. You can tear it up. Okay, that’s fine. Let’s take a break.

(10:51):

“I think we can say pause here instead of trying to help them kind of reconcile it and then we can come back to it. I think there’s a lot of value in like coming back to it later with some distance from the frustrating moment and that’s a time where I might say like, ” Oh, you just really needed to rip up that paper. You did not like what was happening. “That happens to me sometimes too and then you’re trying to help them make sense of like you had an idea in your head and you couldn’t get it out the way you wanted it to and that was like so frustrating. So helping them make sense of it later when they’re more regulated and normalizing for them that it is okay to have a perfectionistic idea and that doesn’t make a person a perfectionist but like yeah, there are moments when we want something to be just exactly right and we couldn’t make it happen and like, ” Oh, it made you so mad and you really want to drip up the paper.

(11:55):

“I don’t know. I think sometimes we as parents are too quick to assume that that process means oh, my child’s going to be a perfectionist or they don’t have a growth mindset and I really have to get them there. And I think also sometimes it’s like not, I think it’s also a human experience to get frustrated by that. And if we normalize that and don’t turn it into a narrative about perfectionism, there’s value in that too, saying like, we all have moments where we get real stuck on an idea.

Dr. Emily (12:26):

Yeah, I love that. And the other, while you were talking about that, and I was just looking at the question one more time, I also think, and I see this actually in my kids sometimes, where there’s another version of this that’s like, so there’s the version you’re talking about that’s like frustrated and like we don’t have to veer away from that. We can just sort of be with that and maybe not resisting that being sort of a helpful place to stay. I also think there’s a little … I see this with my daughter sometimes, so that’s why I’m thinking of this, like there’s a little bit of a reassurance seeking, like this picture is horrible and I’m thinking, oh, she doesn’t really think this picture or does she? I don’t know. She’s a little unsure. So it’s a little bit of seeking validation or wanting to be fluffed up a little, which I also think is okay.

(13:11):

So I think really understanding, like listening to the underlying, your mom gut of the underlying meaning of that message is also a valuable tool here. This listener seems very in tune with her kids, so I can see that being possible, but I think we also sort of need to suss out the different versions of this that come out and get thrown at us and trying to sort of stay in that place. So sometimes I’ll be like, oh, I’ll throw it back like, “Oh, what do you think about it then? Tell me. ” I think being open and explorative and not sort of … To your point earlier, Sarah, if we shut things down really quickly because we’re trying to just make it all okay, it really closes a lot of opportunity down. But if we’re curious and exploratory, I think it really helps open it up and make it less sort of a threatening, dangerous thing.

Dr. Sarah (14:03):

I think as a parent, I struggle with this too, my own perfectionism in parenting is when my kid is struggling with their appraisal of themselves or what they’re working on and it’s negative, I have this urge as a parent to try to prevent them from having a negative view of themselves, right? That’s my fear that I’m projecting onto this, but in a kind of counterintuitive way, I think what I’m saying is, if we allow their negativity to be just one more thing that there’s space for, and to your point, to be then curious like, “Huh, you don’t like it. What was it that you were trying to do? What don’t you like about it? ” To leave room for their negative appraisals without assuming that that means that they are feeling negatively about their abilities globally. Now, this mom is saying that sometimes this girl feels it so inwardly and it gets her down at times.

(15:03):

Again, this is a little counterintuitive, but allowing her to be kind of negative, like feel the negativity, feel her negative appraisal, experience the maybe sadness or turning it inward like, “I’m so bad at this. ” If we go straight to, “Oh, you’re not that bad at this. ” The growth mindset stuff is so important, but I think we can bite our tongue a little bit and save that for definitely something to build skills in at other moments.

Dr. Emily (15:39):

I think of that as like an underlying ethos everywhere, not an acute in the moment.

Dr. Sarah (15:43):

Exactly. In this moment, I might say, I’d narrate that. I’d be like, “Ugh.” Sometimes when you have a hard time getting it the way you want it to go, you don’t just feel bad about the thing you made, but you feel bad about yourself. Huh, that’s hard. And again, staying with the negativity and being curious about it and naming it and narrating it, helping the child become aware of it sometimes does more in helping them create a sense of making sense of it than trying to help them see the positive.

Dr. Emily (16:26):

Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think again, like what we resist persists and so it’s like my new tagline is really like, how do we lean in a little, I think is what you’re saying, like stay with it, don’t be scared of it, lean in it and actually it might alleviate that, right? Exactly. It might have this sort of like opposite effect that you’re not expecting, but I totally believe in that. I think that’s really spot on.

Dr. Sarah (16:53):

Yeah. The antidote to negativity is not necessarily positivity. It’s to staying and accepting the negativity, being curious about it, leaving space for it, helping them have a relationship with their negativity, helping them put a voice and give voice to it so that we can start like even with like anxiety, right? Like when you’re doing like treating OCD, for example, we have an intrusive thought, a lot of noise in our mind. A lot of the things that we do with kids is to help end adults, is to help them really give voice to those negative, intrusive thoughts or worries. And then in giving a lot of voice to that, we can start to help them personify that voice as separate from them. That sounds kind of like your worry brain.

(17:43):

Let’s give your worry brain a name, right? Who is that? It’s a character in your head, right? That is separate. So then you can have like, “Oh, is that a … ” I’ve had a kid use all kinds of different names for their worry brains. Some of them will pick villains from like Marvel comics and stuff. And so then we could start to create personifications or reference it like, “Oh, is that a Jimmy though or is that like a Fanos thought?” But the same thing is relevant to what I’m talking about here is like for the perfectionism, right?

(18:23):

The sort of self critic, the loud self critic that a child might have if they are contending with anxiety and perfectionism is to say like, “Oh, is that your self critic or is that you? ” Or whatever name you’re going to give it, right? But the more we can help them stay with the negative narrative and give voice to it, the more we can start to over time help them identify that part of themselves and start to see it as its own entity, like its own force that they can have some objectivity and some distance from, so that that’s separate from who they are. Parts work also has a way of thinking about it. What part of you is that can be kind of critical of the way that you do things or think something’s really, really bad? And are there other parts of you that say, “Well, I don’t like this part, but I actually really like this part and can be more neutral.” So those are all things to just, I don’t know, ways to introduce this to a kid and start talking about it with them.

Dr. Emily (19:33):

I love that. I use that a lot, like the depersonalizing of the sort of bad part, not bad, I hate to say that word, but the depersonalizing of the critical part and just sort of making them, but not necessarily kicking them out of the room, right? To your point, like saying, “Oh, well, they’re here too.” Yeah. I love that. It helps make it a little bit of distance and a little bit more … It allows for more self-regulation when you have a little bit more distance from the parts.

Dr. Sarah (20:03):

Without inadvertently communicating to a child, oh, being negative about ourselves is a problem and we should replace it with positivity because that actually just keeps those parts more fragmented and actually can maintain it. So I hope that this was helpful. I really appreciate you writing in this question. I hope that a lot of different ways of thinking about … I think a lot of different families contend with very similar situations and so I think I’m happy to be able to answer this question hopefully in ways that can be applied to lots of different scenarios where your child is being a little bit rigid or critical or perfectionistic.

Dr. Emily (20:46):

Love it.

Dr. Sarah (20:47):

Love it. Thanks, Em.

Dr. Emily (20:48):

Bye.

Dr. Sarah (20:50):

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.