Greater Good

If you've been reading this series on perfection being a total drag on happiness, and you keep thinking to yourself, crap, I've created a perfectionist, and now you're worried that your daughter is going to end up depressed and stifled or your son is going to turn out to be an anxious meth user, stop it. Everyone is going to be fine. You don't need to be a perfect parent to raise happy kids. We have actual science to back this fact up.

To recap: Perfectionism is all about fear of failure. The worst case scenario for perfectionists, then, is that we make a mistake or fail—and someone finds out about it. Perfectionist logic:

I stop obsessing about being perfect → I won't be perfect → I'll feel terrible.

This is faulty logic, of course. The way to wean someone from perfectionism is to show them that when they make mistakes and fail, they actually don't feel terrible. In fact, they might feel terribly FREE (at least that is what happened to me).

According to perfectionism researcher Randy Frost, perfectionists believe that their self-worth is contingent on their performance—that if they don't do well, they are worthless. That's why they think it is going to feel bad when they stop trying to be perfect. Perfectionists tend to think that failure to achieve will seriously diminish the affection and high-regard of their parents.

Here's how to help the perfectionist in your life quit it:

1. Have her engage in whatever she tends to be perfectionistic about. Let's say, for example, this is Georgia attempting to draw something she's never drawn before, like an oak tree.

2. Ask her to do it, preferably badly. When I was in high school, my dad used to beg me to get a C just so that I could see that my heart wouldn't stop beating if I wasn't a star student all the time. I finally learned this lesson rock-climbing: the first thing my instructor made me do was fall off of the rock at 50 feet up. Once I felt the ropes catch me, I knew viscerally that I would live even if I did fall, and my legs stopped quaking with fear. Perfectionists need to learn this lesson: usually it doesn't hurt very much or for very long to fail.

3. Ask her what it means that she drew a terrible oak tree, if it did come out badly. Does she think it means that she is not a good artist? Does she think that not being a great artist diminishes her worth? Point out that Thomas Edison had to try more than 1,000 times before he invented the light bulb successfully. If the oak tree is actually pretty good in her eyes, ask her what she thinks that means. Let her see that you don't care a whip whether or not she can draw – you love her just the way she is.

4. Ask her how she feels. Chances are she doesn't feel terrible, but that she feels loved and cared for by you. Point this out empathetically: "Sounds like you feel okay even though you did something you were afraid might make you look bad." Offer enthusiastic congratulations: "How great! You are learning to try new things and take risks! Whoo-hoo!"

5. At this point, you can help develop a strategy that might work better on her next attempt. Try to keep this light-hearted.

If you find your kids laughing at themselves as they reflect on their jobs-imperfectly-done, you know you've succeeded!

Have you stopped being a perfectionist? Weaned a kid from perfectionism? If so, how did you do it? Did you try the steps above? Did it work? Please leave comments and suggestions for other readers.

Step 2 for fostering success and happiness, but not perfectionism:
Let your kids fail.

Related posts:

• How To Make Your Kid into a Perfectionist
• Perfectionism is a Disease
• The Science of Success
• Teaching the Growth Mindset

© 2008 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

Join the Campaign for 100,000 Happier Parents by signing this simple pledge.

Become a fan of Raising Happiness on Facebook.

Follow Christine Carter on Twitter

Subscribe to the Happiness Matters Podcast on iTunes.

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In my last post, I made the case for preventing perfectionism in children, and got a slew of emails from people asking how to prevent perfectionism.

Kids today, especially upper-middle class kids, are under a lot of pressure to achieve. Kids who feel pressure to be perfect are prone to depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. As parents we have a choice: pile on the pressure, or help them see that there is more to life—and to them—than their achievements. Here's how parents create perfectionist children:

1. This isn't rocket science: parents mold their children into perfectionists by wanting and expecting their children to be perfect. Since no child actually is perfect, when parents push for perfection, kids feel criticized.

2. Parents who are perfectionists themselves teach their children to be perfectionists indirectly. Are you overly concerned about making mistakes? Chances are your children will be, too. Wean yourself from perfectionism if you think you might be part of the problem (I'll post more about how later this week).

3. They make their approval contingent on achievement and performance. This is easy to do accidentally – it is classic fixed-mindset thinking. Parents who value their children's achievements more than their character tend to create perfectionists.

4. Even when children are doing very well, perfectionism-creators find faults: they raise an eyebrow at the one B on a report card full of A's, they point out the bad pitch in a game well-played. Praise kids for a job well done without pointing out what they could have done better. Even better, use only growth-mindset praise.

5. Perfectionism-creators are unable to see the positive aspects of mistakes, failures, and jobs left undone, feeling that their children's poor performance will reflect badly on them. If you find yourself doing everything within your power to prevent your children's failures—bringing forgotten homework to school, staying up late to "help" rewrite a paper, manipulating the system to your child's advantage—take a step back and ponder whether you really want to prevent your children from learning to deal with challenges and mistakes themselves.

Sometimes parents do everything right and their kids turn out to be perfectionists anyway. Aside from being a perfectionist herself, my mother did very few of the things on that first list, but because she loved us so much and was so dedicated to our success, she protected us from making mistakes in every way she possibly could. Though I did unequivocally become a perfectionist over-achiever, my brother escaped this fate (he's merely very successful, fulfilled, and happy). The good news is that I seem to have kicked the habit – evidence that people are resilient, adaptable, and able to change.

The next couple of posts will give you even more tips for paving the way for both success AND happiness this school year. Next week I'll discuss how you can discourage "maximizing," which is a form of perfectionism, and teach "satisficing," — a goofy word for meeting expectations and feeling good about it.

My friend Kelly Corrigan—a New York Times best-selling author—is happy and successful, but not a perfectionist. She writes here about the things her parents did that made her at ease with making mistakes and accepting good enough as truly good enough. What did your parents do that discouraged perfectionism? What do you do with your children?

Step 2 for fostering success and happiness, but not perfectionism:
Accept that Achievement Doesn't Matter. Seriously.

Related posts:

• Teaching the Growth Mindset
• Achievement Doesn't Matter
• The Right Way to Praise Kids
• Let Your Kids Fail

© 2008 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

Join the Campaign for 100,000 Happier Parents by signing this simple pledge.

Become a fan of Raising Happiness on Facebook.

Follow Christine Carter on Twitter

Subscribe to the Happiness Matters Podcast on iTunes.

Sign up for the Raising Happiness CLASS!

Although in my last post I heartily extolled the importance of hard work, I'd like to clarify that I'm not advocating that you push your children to become perfectionists. Perfectionism is not a happiness habit. Maybe it isn't technically a disease (I am trying to be science-based here) but as a recovering perfectionist I can testify that perfectionism is the absolute bane of happiness. Perfectionists are prone to depression and severe anxiety, and they are more likely to commit suicide when things go really wrong.

A lot of people incorrectly assume that perfectionism propels kids to the top of their class, their teams, and eventually their fields. But it isn't the perfectionism that is doing it, it is the hard work. To the contrary, perfectionism tends to detract from success:

1. Perfectionism creates a steady state of discontent fueled by a stream of negative emotions like fear, frustration, and disappointment.
2. When you are a perfectionist, you can't enjoy even your successes—there is always something you could have done better.
3. Because failure is not an option for perfectionists, fear of failure becomes a driving force. All that fear diverts energy from more constructive things, making perfectionists less able to learn and be creative. Perfectionists expend a lot of energy on the things they are desperately trying to avoid: failure and the criticism they imagine it will create. Ironically, this preoccupation has been shown to undermine performance in sports, in academics, and in social situations.
4. Perfectionism—like all fixed-mindset thinking—keeps kids from taking risks and embracing challenge. Rising to a challenge is one of the best ways to go from being good at something to being great.
5. Perfectionism leads kids to conceal their mistakes and avoid getting constructive feedback. In nearly every field—writing groups are the most obvious example here—group critique is a rapid way to get better at something.

Perfectionism is NOT about setting high expectations or being successful in your endeavors. It is about being concerned about making mistakes and about worrying about what others think.
We also know that for the most part, kids aren't born perfectionists—their environment creates them. As parents put more and more pressure on their children to achieve, more and more children are becoming perfectionists.

What do you do as a parent to foster perfectionism in your child? Do you have ideas about ways you'll discourage it in the future? Have a story about the perils of perfectionism? Please share it by leaving a comment!

© 2008 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

Step 1 for fostering success and happiness, but not perfectionism:
Teach a Growth Mindset

Related posts:

• The Science of Success
• Achievement Doesn't Matter
• The Right Way to Praise Kids
• Let Your Kids Fail

Join the Campaign for 100,000 Happier Parents by signing this simple pledge.

Become a fan of Raising Happiness on Facebook.

Follow Christine Carter on Twitter

Subscribe to the Happiness Matters Podcast on iTunes.

Sign up for the Raising Happiness CLASS!