There’s something about being in my 40’s that’s made it easier to see my own patterns and tendencies. Some of those are good habits. Reflecting on others, though, I can see how they’ve held me back from greater happiness and fulfilling my purpose. I’ve realized that one of the most harmful patterns in my life is perfectionism.
Sharing my struggles with you, readers, is one of the best ways I’ve found to begin breaking bad habits. Today, I’m reflecting on how perfectionism is affecting my parenting.
I’ll also share ideas that any of us perfectionist parents can use to change our habits and model being a good (not perfect) human to our kids.
In a couple of weeks, I’ll be writing a followup post about how I see perfectionism holding me back as an activist for social justice.
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How perfectionism is different from having high standards for ourselves and our kids
Most of have heard that we should have high expectations for our kids, and that they will rise to those expectations.
Maybe that line of thinking has also helped you achieve goals that were important to you.
But perfectionism is different from high standards. Perfectionists don’t allow any room for mistakes. Failures are taken as sign of who a person is, rather than what they did. So, “I failed” quickly becomes “I am a failure.”
Perfectionists fear people seeing our mistakes, so we’re reluctant to try things we aren’t already good at. I can think of so many experiences and relationships I missed out on in my younger years because I was afraid of failing at sports, a new hobby, making small talk with strangers, or even losing a board game.
And I’m often way too hard on myself when I make mistakes as a parent.
I’m prone to anxiety in general. Plus, the amount of time I spend looking at parenting-related social media accounts and blogs contributes to the sometimes unmanageable expectations I have for myself as a mom.
How breaking free of perfectionism can help our kids
Our youngest child recently turned 7, and I can already see his own struggle with wanting to do things perfectly all the time. For example, he doesn’t want to read to me because he knows he won’t be able to get all the words on the page right.
I know this desire to avoid mistakes is keeping him from learning skills that only come through practice and lots of mistakes. (Thankfully he’s more willing to try things at school than he is at home.)
And I don’t want him to miss out on experiences that could be fun – or even life-changing – because of a fear of failure.
But I also know that I can’t help our kiddo with this unless I learn take more risks myself. He’s listening to the words I say to him, but even more, he’s also watching how I act.
And I also know that being too hard on myself affects how I perceive other people. As psychoanalyst H. David Stein says, “parents who cannot tolerate their imperfections often cannot tolerate their children’s either.”
I agree with Brené Brown, who writes in Rising Strong that “in terms of teaching our children to dare greatly in the ‘never enough’ culture, the question isn’t so much, ‘Are you parenting the right way?’ as it is ‘Are you the adult that you want your child to grow up to be?’”
As a person of faith, I believe that my value, and my child’s value, is in who we are and whose we are, not in the work we produce. But my actions too often don’t reflect that belief, because I get hyper-focused on doing things right.
Practices that help parents and kids break free from perfectionism
1. Try things that you don’t think you’re good at
I’m starting by eliminating the phrase “I’m just not good at that” from my vocabulary. Yes, it helps to know what our strengths and growing edges are.
But to just declare we can’t do something? That’s limiting, and our kids are listening as we say it. (Admitting there are some things you don’t want to do is a whole other thing. There’s nothing wrong with saying no to things you detest, especially if you tend to be a people pleaser.)
For the longest time, I was afraid to take a yoga class (even though I liked practicing at home.) What if someone saw that I’m not that flexible, or I did a pose wrong?
A year ago, I started taking yoga class, and it’s become my favorite part of the week! And I mess up a pose at least once every class, often while my teacher gently pokes fun at me. In fact, being able to laugh at myself about getting my left and right mixed up is one of the things I enjoy most about the experience, strangely enough.
2. Talk to yourself gently
At a Montessori parent education meeting last week, our son’s teacher asked, “how do your kids see you react when you make a mistake? Do you say, ‘I’m so stupid!” (I immediately wondered if Ms. Faiqa had a hidden camera in my home.)
I’m practicing saying “oops, I messed up” in a light-hearted way. When my son is around of course, but also when I’m alone. Because I don’t want to have to fake being comfortable with mistakes. I want to truly be comfortable with the idea that I make mistakes.
In Rising Strong, Brené Brown encourages us to “talk to ourselves in the way way we’d talk to someone we love.”
3. Prioritize sleep (for yourself and for your kid)
This is a tricky one for me. I know sleep is incredibly important for restoring myself and keeping my kid out of Gremlin mood. But at times I’ve also let his sleep turn into an obsession. (Hello perfectionism, there you are again!)
Here’s what’s worked so far for our family. We don’t do many social activities that get in the way of bedtime (including my own. Just ask my night owl best friend how lame I am when she comes into town to visit.)
And other than church activities, we’re not doing any extra curricular activities at the moment. If there was something our 7 year old strongly wanted to do, I’d be willing to add one activity a week. But I want to make sure he has plenty of time to play and sleep when he’s out of school.
Related Post: Comparison was stealing my parenting joy
4. Embrace play
When I find myself the most stressed, it’s a reminder that I need to play. Playing with my son helps me reconnect with him. It reminds me that my to do list is not as important as I’ve convinced myself it is.
But I also mean that parents should embrace whatever is playful for themselves. This year, that’s meant that I’m really making time to read books just for me.
In the past I’d feel guilty that I wasn’t working more on my business, or cooking from scratch more, or that my gross bathroom wasn’t clean. Now I’ve given myself permission to enjoy getting lost in that book. And you know what? It gives me a lot more energy for the to do list when I go back to it.
5. Practice meditation, mindfulness, or prayer
One of the reasons I’m enjoying my meditation and prayer practices right now is that I’ve let go of perfectionistic expectations about those practices. With my life the way it is right now, I’m not going to meditate or formally pray every single day. I do it as often as I can, and I’m so more compassionate to myself and others because of it.
Perfectionism and anxiety tend to go hand in hand, which is one of the reasons I recommend mindfulness practices for both parents and for kids.
Our son has a peace corner where he can go when he’s struggling with big emotions. It’s right next to my prayer and meditation area. Sometimes we do mindfulness activities there together.
6. Be aware of how social media affects you
Both teens and adults are spending a lot of time on social media these days, and there’s a growing body of research that suggests too much time online harms our mental health.
Again, I’m aware that I’ll never have a perfect handle on how I use social media, and I don’t want to beat myself up.
But I also know that I tend to feel more anxious and sad after I’ve spent a long period of time on Facebook. So lately, as I scroll, I’ll ask myself after a few minutes “how do I feel right now?” When I realize I don’t feel good, it’s easier to put the phone down and find something else to do that can help me feel better.
I also know it’s just a few years until our youngest will be asking for a phone and for social media accounts. If we don’t set healthy boundaries for ourselves in how we use social media, we won’t be able to help him do the same.
7. Be careful about how you use praise
If you’re an educator, you’ve probably heard of the ground-breaking “growth mindset” research of Dr. Carol Dweck. But I’ve found many parents don’t know about her work.
I highly recommend reading the chapter “The Inverse Power of Praise” in the book NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children. The authors sum up research by Dweck and others that finds when we praise children for being smart or being good at something, it actually makes it less likely that our kids will try things that they think is difficult.
What does work? Praising (in a measured way) the effort that children put into a task.
Sometimes, when I see my son continuing to work at something that’s clearly a challenge, I’ll praise him at the end when he comes to show me his work.
Often, these are elaborate projects where he’s imagined something and plans to build it out of materials from the recycling bin. I’ll tell him, “I like the way that you didn’t give up. You kept trying things until you found a way to build what you wanted to make.”
Related Post: What the Montessori method is teaching me about parenting
8. Let your child fail
This one is so hard for me, but it might be the most important tip on this list!
If I always let my child win when we play a game, he’s going to get the idea that he’s done something really awful when he actually loses against someone else someday. (This is especially important because there’s a 14 year gap between my stepson and him. So he doesn’t have anyone at home who’s the right age to be a true opponent.)
We have to let our children practice recovering from mistakes and failures, whether that’s getting a poor grade on a school project or breaking a glass in the kitchen.
One of the things that always impresses me when I observe in my son’s Montessori school is how the teachers do not react when children break things, other than making sure the mess is taken care of. Children as young as 3 are using real glass, so sometimes things get broken.
But because an accident is simply treated as something routine to be taken care of, the children don’t experience fear or shame. They simply learn to be more careful the next time.