How Perfectionism Hurts Parents and Their Kids

You want your children to feel loved and they are happy, healthy and reasonably well high. Nothing is more important. Advice on how to achieve it come from all over: game mothers, media, your parents-in-law. You can be one of those people who require the perfection of yourself in everything you do, especially that. Or you can be someone who attaches to the gap between your ideal of parenting and what you can really achieve. The sad irony is that the more you work hard and you worry about being perfect, the more you can make yourself miserable – and the more likely you are to raise worried children or to themselves, has shown psychological research.

“If you are a perfectionist parent, know that you are not alone!” said clinical psychologist Erica Lee of Boston Children’s Hospital. As cultural changes in Western countries emphasize competitive individualism, younger men and women consider more and more that others demand perfection, and they demand it from themselves, including when they are parents. Studies systematically reveal the links of perfectionism with anxiety, depression and other ills. “Staying a” all or nothing “standard can induce feelings of anxiety, submerged and shame [you]An appointment more critical and rigid, withdrawn from your joy and your development as a parent, ”explains Lee.

The assembly of research shows that, when people are perfectity on their parenting, their children also risk these emotional problems. “Perfectionist parents tend to raise perfectionist children, which may increase [kids’] Risk of depression, anxiety, self -criticism and self -harm, ”explains Lee. Recently, scientists have identified which parents perfectionists risk the most serious emotional consequences – and also when the establishment of super -ourdi standards could benefit parents and children.

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Psychologists define perfectionism as a personality trait which is generally stable over time – although circumstances can ignite or calm it. They also found that perfectionism is anchored in two main personality traits: high consciousness and high neuroticism. These features, in turn, are linked to the two facets of perfectionism: “efforts” for high standards and “concerns” concerning the perceived failures. Very conscientious “efforts” tend to seek excellence in everything. They set incompetenceable objectives and try to achieve them. On the other hand, people raised in the line of neuroticism, which focuses more on their concerns – simply call them “concerns” – are likely to have problems of anxiety or self -esteem. They ruminate more on the gap between their ideals and the slightest growth in daily parenthood, is reprimanded to make mistakes.

Recently, psychologists have decided to understand how the efforts against concerns influence the identities of mothers and fathers as parents. In a study of 1,275 Polish parents aged 18 to 30, participants were invited to answer questions about what they felt as parents three times during a year. They noted how much they agreed with statements such as “it is important to me that I am completely competent in everything I do” or “if I fail at work / at school, I am a failure as a person”.

Parents who have most of the concerns about their performance felt the worst of themselves as parents. “”Such parents experience greater uncertainty, dissatisfaction and even the regret of their decision to become parents, “said psychologist Konrad Piotrowski, principal of the study, who works at SWPS University in Poland. Parents who were mainly more frightening with less concerns, on the other hand, felt better about them than those who ranked higher in concerns, as measured by the scales of perfectionism.

But it was rare even for the efforts of not worrying. The efforts and concerns are both sides of the same room; In most people, they coexist. “Only a relatively small subset of parents – those who maintain high personal standards while feeling concerns or a minimum doubt – their best of their best,” explains Piotrowski. “For the most part, perfectionism can ultimately lead to an alteration of operation, an increase in stress and reduced satisfaction with regard to parenting.”

These are symptoms of professional exhaustion. A study on babies mothers in Finland has shown that two factors have contributed the most to professional exhaustion: external social pressures to be a flawless parent and low self -esteem. Moms already suffering from low self -confidence have been the hardest affected by professional exhaustion, while more safe mothers felt it less. (Generally, research reveals that although perfectionist fathers can feel disappointed with themselves, the cultural expectations of mothers as the main dispenser of care lead them to stand up to much higher standards than fathers.)

A mountain of research also established that the insistence of parents to be perfect can it damage the mental health of their children. Fuschia Sirois, social psychologist and health at the University of Durham in England, co-wrote an analysis of 14 studies on the negative effects of parents’ perfectionism on children. Such effects are the legion. Parents who are worried about being imperfect can inadvertently raise their children to see errors as indicators that they are bad people. And the modeling of unrealistic expectations can lead children to develop low self -esteem or a feeling of omnipresent failure.

For example, imagine a mother who was called to school because her five -year -old daughter struck another child. She feels embarrassed, as if she turned out to be a bad parent. Afflicted with perfectary concerns, she is ashamed, guilty and as a failure. Instead of asking her daughter what happened, she shouts that hitting is bad and punishes the child. “This child will take this to heart,” says Sirois. “They will think that there is a kind of intrinsic defect there, rather than bad behavior.”

Nevertheless, establishing high standards for parenting, even unrealistic, can provide advantages – as long as the parent is not increased by doubt and criticism, Sirois has found in his analysis. In the hypothetical situation mentioned above, the mother is a step, so when her child acts, she may feel soil for not having respected her high parental standards. But, working to do better, this parent could ask the girl why she hit her classmate and explain how to use words, not fists, when she gets angry. Sirois found that such efforts were less likely to inflict emotional distress on their children.

The Polish study has shown another relative advantage for straves: they were more likely that concerns to seek parenting education, and at least some of them adjusted their standards down at more realistic levels during the study.

“This is an excellent result,” said Piotrowski, “demonstrating that interventions for parents (workshops, therapy) which allow them to take a more reflecting approach and aware of their own parenting can free them from the rigid framework of perfectionist expectations.”

The trick to adopt this more conscious approach, say the experts, is to notice when your expectations cause misery for you and emotional problems for your children. They note some red flags:

• You judge yourself of an all or nothing base. If you make a mistake, you see yourself as a failure.

• You brush your successes. If other parents tell you how surprisingly your child behaved during a party, you can’t take it.

• You observe that your child is not satisfied with his achievements because they fear that they are not good enough.

If you notice these things, the experts suggest you start by helping you:

• Speak honestly with other parents about your difficulties. You will probably see that even some apparently imperturbable parents are also in difficulty.

• When you notice that you criticize yourself so as not to do enough, remember good things you are TO DO.

• Tell yourself as if you were a compassionate friend from another parent.

• If you feel that you are drowning in a way of failure, ask for advice.

Above all, think of what is good for your children overall rather than focusing on your own performance. “Self -acceptance model,” explains Lee. “If it is difficult to be nice to yourself, reframe it:` `If I give myself more flexibility and grace, if my children are confident and capable of tackling the difficult problems even when they are not sure, and if I offer them love and acceptance to help them give themselves the same thing-then I am the” big “parent that I try to be. ” ”.