I have a LOT of experience in this arena. It is one of my biggest challenges I have faced while homeschooling my own children. I also think my challenges are escalated by my own personality. I am not a perfectionist at all. Sure I like a job done well but I am fine if it is a bit rough around the edges so long as I have given it my best effort. This is the same deal for my boys too.
My daughter on the other hand struggles immensely with the need for perfection. This perfectionist tendency also triggers her anxiety and meltdowns. It is just one vicious cycle to be honest.
Over the years we have put in copious amounts of time and effort to help her work with her need to always be or perform perfectly. Some things have worked and others have been a complete waste of time and resources. I really wanted to share what has worked for her in hopes that other families will be able to benefit from our experience.
What is Perfectionism?
Perfectionism is the need to appear or be perfect. This can often be seen by some as a positive trait. However it can also be a trait that brings you right down to self depreciating thoughts, depression and anxiety, especially when the levels of perfectionism can not be attained.
Signs of Perfectionism
There are lots of signs of perfectionism but I am just going to limit it to the homeschool environment.
- They don’t want to complete the work because it is “too hard” yet you will find them hiding away later trying to figure it out alone so that no one can see them fail.
- They are upset when they get an answer wrong despite doing well over all.
- They point out all the places where they have fallen short on an assignment
- They have unrealistic expectations of themselves
- They won’t answer a question or offer a suggestion unless they are 100 percent confident.
- They would rather miss out on an activity or challenge that attempt it and not get it right, despite how much fun the activity is.
- Tests are incredibly difficult for them. They may become so worked up about them that they don’t do as well as they really could have done.
- Melt downs are common.
- They start to use self depreciating phrases like “I suck”, “My brother is always so much better than me”, or “I can never do anything right”
- They can take excessive amounts of time to complete a task, doing it over and over until it is “perfect”
How to Teach the Perfectionist
I said previously that we have tried many different approaches to helping our daughter to overcome these tendencies. The ones I am going to share are the things we have done that have had the most positive effects for her.
1. Growth Mindset
This is hands down the best thing we have ever done for our daughter. Growth mindset is an incredible concept that is going to be momentally beneficial to all children (and adults), not just those that are struggling.
If you aren’t sure what growth mindset is you will want to visit this post here which discusses it in much more detail that what I will do here. It really does deserve it’s own post.
The Big Life Journal was the turning point for us. It was instrumental in helping our daughter to understand that failure wasn’t something to be afraid of or something negative. Failure is in fact a positive thing, it helps to realise what to you need to work on. It is simply a stepping stone a long the way.
She learned that effort, determination and perseverance were much more important that perfection the first time around. She learned that mistakes can help her grow and become stronger.
Most of all she learned to enjoy the process of learning. She began asking questions, and not being afraid to give things a try even when it was almost certain that failure was likely.
2. Allow Them to Work Alone
When we were first working with our daughter Liliana, she would freeze up any time she had to work around other people. Even if they weren’t paying attention, just their presence was off putting to her.
It was at this point I decided that for the work she needed to do where she would be giving answers out loud we would do it somewhere private. These were lessons like math and language arts in particular.
The reduced pressure gave her a little more confidence to make mistakes as needed without feeling like everyone was sitting around judging her. They weren’t, but that was just her impression of the situation.
3. Refocus Praise
Praising your child is a big part of parenting and helping to encourage them. However there is a way to praise a child that has the most effect on them.
Praising your child for their efforts is so much more effective than praising them for ability. Effort is something a child has control over. They can choose how much or little effort they put into a task. If a child has put in their utmost effort yet still only produced a mediocre result do they not deserve the praise vs a child who puts in zero effort but gets a better result?
The way in which we praise a child effects how a child responds to failure. If we continuously praise our children for “being smart” when they fail at a task they internalise that failure much more deeply. Feeling that their is something inherently wrong with them. When we praise their efforts instead, they meet failure with a different mindset. They will take those failures and turn them into a learning experience on which to built.
If you want to read a study done on this you can find one here.
When we changed the focus of our praise for Liliana from being on the end result, or trying to build up her self esteem by telling her how smart she was, it had the complete opposite effect. Praising effort
Set the Example
One of the ways we can help our children overcome challenges is be setting the example ourselves. When they see us failing or making mistakes, they will look to see how we respond.
When you make a mistake point it out to your child and talk them through your feelings and how you are going to address it. This will help them to learn strategies to overcome when they are in similar situations.
Perfectionist children are often hard to homeschool because they are resistant to learning new things unless they can be great at it straight away. These strategies outlined above have been the best options for our family to overcome this.
While our daughter is a million times better, she is still quite the perfectionist. I feel that this will be something she will need to work on for the rest of her life. However if we can help her to use this to her advantage and great a healthy attitude and behaviour around it then it will serve her well, now and in the future.
