How to Parent Your Perfectionistic Child, Part One || with Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife and Carolyn Bever

Start with these tips to parent and empower your perfectionistic child!

Do you have a child who struggles with perfectionism? Maybe, you’re not quite sure . . . 

Parenting a perfectionistic child can be overwhelming and confusing, especially because perfectionism isn’t just for the stereotypical overachiever. 

For years, I’ve heard from parents who want to know what to do with their kids who are terrified of failure. That’s why I invited two experts to share their advice this week. 

Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife and Carolyn Bever share their personal and professional advice on HOW to parent and empower perfectionistic children. 

We cover: how to recognize perfectionism in your child, the importance of you having your own sense of self, and practical tips on how to parent your unique perfectionist.  

We had so much to share, that we needed to split the episode into two parts! So, be sure to come back for Part Two and its expansion on the most essential tip: starting with yourself.

You don’t have to feel overwhelmed and confused. Start with these tips to help empower and parent your perfectionistic child!

About a few other things...

Reclaim your creative power and rediscover who you actually are! If you’re ready to come back home to yourself, to be able to say that you know who you are and what matters to you, take my foundation course, “Finding Me.” It’s OK that you’ve lost parts of yourself along the way; but as you learn to anchor back into who you are and align your life to what matters to you, you’ll find that you have more strength, more fulfilment, and more creativity to bring to your important roles and responsibilities.

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TRANSCRIPT

Monica: I know you've both worked with perfectionistic people. You've worked with perfectionistic children AND parents, and Jennifer, you probably have worked with both too. So let's set the scene a little bit and just describe a bit of, of your own experience with us. So Carolyn, how about you share that with us? Okay. And then Jennifer.

Carolyn: As a violin teacher I work with the same families for an extended period of time. And so it's of course not just with the violin that will come up, but you know, there's a lot of kids that don't want to take on a new piece or don't want to start an activity at school, or don't want to try a new challenge because the fear of not being good at it or not being good at it right away, limits them. And they have no sense of really what their true capability of that new thing is going to be. And so, you know, it's hard because you see them limit their experiences and then they feel internally, probably bad about not doing it.

You know, it's, there's not an appreciation of the process and or the appreciation of the failing and the appreciation of what we're going to overcome with those challenges and how to settle ourselves down. And then it, you know, of course the parents sometimes bring their own anxieties into it as well.

And so you can see the kids managing the parents' anxieties and their wants for their kids. I find that that is honestly, sometimes the hardest thing is to have the parents and the kids assuming that their parents know everything and that their parents are fully developed. You know, these are two people in this room and a triangle with me and we all have our limitations; but we owe it to the kids in the room, the child in the room to manage ourselves, manage our own you know, anxieties and wants for this student to figure out what is their capability at this level? How can I bring them to the next level in a way that is, allowing them to figure out what their strengths are and how they can manage to go to that next.

Monica: I'm remembering from our first interview we did together Jennifer, you said perfectionism is a lack of development, and we can expect that in kids, especially those who are doing things like being in the, you know, learning how to become an incredible musician, like the students that you have worked with for many years, but also in their parents and how those two work together.

And I'm sure a lot of people listening don't have children who are at the advanced level of musical training, but they still are exhibiting these behaviors and signs. And it's important, like you said, to also manage how you might be contributing to the problem. We're going to get to that more, but that's a nice way to set the scene a bit too.

And Jennifer before we dig in more to the conversation, I would also love to hear from you what has this looked like? Dealing with professional perfectionistic children in your personal and professional life.

Jennifer: Yeah, well, I mostly work with adults, of course. And so you know, the perfectionism is just so much a part of the human experience. It's something where so many of us. Until we reach a certain level of development, which often is around age 70 when we can . . .

But there is this kind of linking of value with flawlessness that's or superiority. It's really hard to see our way through, especially when we're younger. So, you know, I see a lot of adults that are still grappling with.

That they were struggling with us children and are still trying to work their way out of as adults. So I see it more in that frame. I, you know, I can talk about this more. I certainly have seen it in my own children and I've seen my own problematic role in some of that, how some of my own perfectionism has exacerbated some of their vulnerabilities. And so, you know, I kind of know it mostly on that level when it comes to kids as my own kids.

Monica: Yeah. And it was fun to hear more about your son specifically last time and just, yeah. And just how you, you know, you're like everybody else, you're human, you bring your own anxieties to the table in parenting.

And that's a big part of what we want to talk today about today is how we, as parents can better show up for and empower our perfectionistic children, especially when they are at a prime time of developmet. That's right. And this way. So they don't, you know, get into the patterns that many of us are still working on ourselves as adults.

So this might seem like a dumb question, but I think it bears discussion. Where does perfectionism come from? You've both talked about this a little bit here. Anxiety, lack of development, it's just the human experience. But with kids, let's pinpoint that a little bit more. Where's this coming from for them?

Jennifer: Well you know, right, as you were saying, like, this is a lot to do with human development. And so, as I've talked about before, I think on this podcast, is that when we're first born, when we're young, we don't have a reference point for our value except to look to other people to tell us we're okay. And human beings love success. They love competency. They love talent. So it's not hard for kids to figure out pretty quickly what gets rewarded, right? What gets paid attention to what gets celebrated. And because you're trying to earn your value just naturally as a child, through other people's eyes, it can be, unless you have a parent who's very clear and is a strong antidote to that kind of thinking, you can very quickly feel like if I'm not good at reading, I'm less than the kids that are good at reading. It's just natural to say like, I, my mom looks worried when I can't read that word. And she seems excited when my sister can, for example. And so it's very easy to quickly start understanding that competency gets rewarded. And if you see your own incompetencies to feel that that makes you inferior.

So learning this lesson that we all genuinely matter, that we all have inherent value, that our gifts are not indications of our value. They're literally gifts. I mean, that is to say we are all just sort of in certain bodies, certain experiences that we haven't chosen and we get the benefit or the challenge of those positions and to be humble about it. And clear about that and hold onto our value in the face of that. It is a spiritually challenging process. That takes time to really work ourselves out around. And, you know, we can talk about this more, but who your parents are, the messages you heard around who you are as a human being will certainly make a difference, but it isn't everything because it is a developmental process.

Even if you have the world's best parents that you still have this meaning to work out within yourself. Biologically, some are more anxious and sensitive to these things than others are. So some will be naturally more inclined to be perfectionistic and conscientious to a detriment than others. So there's also a biological piece in this.

Monica: I think that any, any person who has, you know, two or more children, they see that a lot of times. Well, not a lot of times every time a kid is. In certain ways, not that I can't be nurtured or developed, like you're saying, but you just, you see that difference almost from day one.

You can see the differences and how they are showing up to the world. You know, Carolyn early on in the interview, you said something about how perfectionistic children have a fear of not being good. And that to me is a big part of the problem, right? Because with their underdeveloped minds and immaturity, they only see things in binary.

So "good" does not have a real clear definition. It's right. It's extreme. I think what yeah. What in your experience? Shown that to be true.

Carolyn: Yeah. I mean, I think, again, it's all this, you know, ambiguous reference point, right. What I think is good, what they think is good, what their parents think is good. You know, we can't, you know, having that external reference point is our issue.

That's our biggest thing to overcome is how do we, and of course, in their development, understanding what they are capable of, what are they in control of? Because with external referencing all the time, we have to of course grow out of it and we have to figure out, I do want to do good in the world, I want to do the right thing, but what is it that I believe is the right thing. I remember growing up, and just having grown up, say like, you're going to get to know yourself. You're going to really know who you are. I didn't know what they were talking about forever. I still think it's such a vague way of saying it.

Right. But, until you know what your capacities are, what are your limitations? I know what I'm not good at. And I can forgive myself for that. It's easier to forgive myself for what I'm not good at because I do have a few things that I know I am good at,. When you're a child and you're an adolescent, a lot of times you don't know what you're good at.

And so when you know what you're bad at, it's much harder to bear that because then you don't have a sense of just even stability of gosh, you know, it seems like Sally has X, Y, and Z, and she's got a better Barbie collection . . .

 I was never the student that was really a master at anything. And so when I see students grapple with those things, it's so painful to watch them go through that, but there's no other way you have to go through it. You can't can't solve that problem for them. You can absolutely guide them through it and manage yourself in the process and learn as an adult from them.

But as parents, we passed a lot of our own insecurities onto them and giving our children the gift of accepting our limitations, not asking our children to fulfill something for us, that their job isn't, that isn't their job. They can track it when we do it. You know, it's so horrible when we, when I see it in parents and I have to sometimes even just say, you know, remember this isn't about you. And you know, this is about the process. We want to help them, you know, With the work ethic and with the perseverance, not the product. That's what our jobs are.

Monica: Yes. And that is something I feel like I've learned only as an adult fully, is that the transformation lies in the process, not the outcome, that's where their real growth is, but you can't go through thatif you're not willing to also accept failure as part of the process and your own limitations as you go along. And we're going to get way more into some practical ways parents can model this, teach it and, and beyond. We've kind of talked more about the why, why they struggle with perfectionism. I do want to talk before the tips about what it can look like, because it's not always the stereotypical behavior you might expect in a perfectionistic child, but it also might be that too.

So stereotypically let's go there first and then what does that, is that an word un-stereotypically? What's the word? Sure. Who knows? So let's start with stereotypically. What could it look like?

Jennifer: Yeah, I think, you know, we, you know what, in sort of two forms, I think one of the stereotypical one is of course conscientious. Nothing is ever good enough trying and trying and trying, spending hours on a paper because it's never quite perfect enough. So I think a lot of times people say I'm not a perfectionist because they were never that or they're looking for that in their child. And I have one child who does lean in that direction, super conscientious, super, you know, kind of hard on herself. If she's not done it really well.

But then the other version can be in miss don't try version, right? Don't don't even extend yourself into that uncertainty, because if you fail, it will crush your sense of your self. So it can look like not caring. And, you know, I remember one of my kids saying to me, mom, this is not about not caring because it seemed like an under exertion.

Like an under you know, and it's more like, I'm, I feel some paralysis around. . . I don't want to expose myself. I'd rather say I didn't try. Mm. Then try and fail. And a lot of people do that and they'll call themselves lazy or they don't care, but it's really, for very many people that is not the right picture.

Monica: That's the same thing as Carolyn brought up about anxieties and fear of not doing, doing well with an unknown, ambiguous definition. Anything to add there, Carolyn,

Carolyn: I would just say, I think some of your listeners might really understand the word perfectionism, but you know, if I have some violin families that are going to listen to this, I just, you know, even asking, I had, you know, a conversation with, with Leah mydesign business partner, about some of her thoughts around it as he's 27 and just kind of wanting a perspective. And even in talking to her, I realized that she was referencing it as a good thing. And I just want to be very clear is that, and I, you know, again, your listeners understand, but it's really a lack of development. Right? We aren't there yet. This isn't, it can look like overfunctioning, it can look like underfunctioning . And Either way, we're not at peace and either way we're externally referencing. Yes. So I just wanted to just, you know, and she was saying, well, Gosh, It's not even like I got it from you guys. We watch movies and you see this, this image of this perfect life, this perfect "doer," this per social media, it's brutal. It's brutal. And it just causes so much pain because of course, you know, we don't have to go into this, but again, it's the kids that I am teaching now, it is much harder for them to get positive messages of what it is to be a normal human being.

Monica: So what they can look for are, you know, there's examples of perhaps compulsive behavior where they can't stop until it's good enough.

A lot of anxiety focus on failure, their inadequacies overachieving. And we also can focus on those who seem apathetic or lazy or frozen, you know, paralyzed, not trying. But for all the same reasons that the root of knowing who they are it's externalized.

Carolyn: I notice it in depression, you know, seeing some that paralysis and you know, just real sadness.

Jennifer: Hmm. Yeah. Right. Some people that are depressed and under functioning, it sounds like an insult. So I don't like that word, but they're not, they're not engaging into the activities that they may want, even on some level that they may value. And that can be exactly that, that the depression is like, they maybe came out of a system or a family that was very high demand or that they have a high demand within themselves. And so they don't go do those things, but then it reinforces the sense of I'm a failure, I can't, which increases that sense of paralysis. So it can be a really challenging meaning spiral that is very easy to get into.

And especially for young people, I mean, I was listening to a podcast recently about social media and especially its impact on girls who have much higher as a collective adolescent girls now have much higher depression and anxiety scores because they're getting on these forums and seeing all these perfectionistic images, perfectionistic ideals. They're getting left out of things because friends are tagging friends. That's just a kind of awareness of, of a very curated picture of humanity, and then judging themselves against that. And it's just brutal. It's just, it's such an insecure time already to be an adolescent, even in the best of circumstances, there is so much uncertainty, your body's changing, you have acne.

You don't yet have any sense of what your real capacities are. Very few people know, have any idea what they want to become at that. And yet they're trying to manage this question of their own value. And so that perfectionism is just in so many kids' hearts because they're trying to establish that they matter.

And, you know, I don't know what we do about social media, but it is very, very unkind to or kids.

Monica: Even 20 plus years ago when I was a teen and I remember routinely in my middle school and in high school times just staying up late at night, but not because I was doing things, although that usually was the case, but I was staying up late at night, basically in this pit of despair over how bad I was.

And always, you know, and I think that's way more common than when you think of that was even outside of the social media age. And so awareness seems to be a big part of the thing that we need to tackle as parents. It's just trying to look for the signs, whether they are exhibiting overtly. Or just, you know, as a parent, you can sense that something's different or something's going on with your kid, that you have to dig into more.

So let's, let's move on to some ways that they can actually help their kids. Once they have more of awareness, I think this is something they're struggling with and what they can do to help these kids learn how to have an, a more internal reward and value system inside of themselves instead of on the outside.

Carolyn, how about let's start with you. Any, any ways that they can start.

Carolyn: Yes. I love going before Jennifer, because I say things and then she says it way better. No, I first, I guess I also want to say, you know, it takes a village and yes, I'm an educator, but I really like the idea of we're in this together in all ways.

So if you teach something in like your church or in your 4- H program. Like I think that we have a big impact on kids that are not ours because they don't push from that parental role. And I just, you know, we all want to hug the people that have influenced our children's lives because we can't always do it for them.

And I just want to invite the listeners to just make it a priority to look after others children's struggles and we circle the wagons. And just know that, you know, we, if we think about the adults that made a difference in our lives, it's a big deal.

Jennifer: Absolutely.

Monica: And we know that too.

I mean, sometimes it's just has to come from someone outside of the family. So have that awareness of your sphere of influence outside of your family, but also use it.

Carolyn: Yes, exactly. You have the confidence that you can make a difference and those little things matter, you know, just again, like, gosh, I really appreciate your efforts and help with this.

You know, sounds something that, and again, we're praising. Thing. Right. So I would say, you know, my first tip is to praise the process, you know, and praise the failure, praise the, the, the settling down of the failure, you know, settling yourself down to, to, to handle the failure andreminding them to find the joy.

And I know it sounds so cliche and the learning, but not the result, like life isn't about this end thing. We're not going to be happy when we get somewhere. We're going to be happy today if we choose to be happy and, and in the little things that give us peace and pleasure, you know, I have to tackle after this call really scary things.

Right. And you know, I have to move through it. That's the only way to get to the other side. I can avoid it. I'm not going to feel better. It's going to hurt and that, that only going to be harder. So it's like, you know, just pushing my self and my students to make small steps to get to that end and will feel so much better when we do.

I also think telling stories I tell them to my students all the time, it makes me a real person. And I always tell, you know, when this person said this and how did I manage it? And don't always tell the happy ending stories, you know, tell the ones where they were brutally challenging and you still got, you know, made fun of, or you didn't get the grade you wanted or whatever, so that they know you're, you're real and you're in this with them.

And and then obviously my third tip is to keep track of our own insecure. You know, our kids are not there to massage our egos and to make you a more successful person, whatever silly notions that we have. And so don't transfer them and give them the gift of accepting yourself. Don't pass that onto them, you know, give them the gift of, of acknowledging what it is to be human.

It's hugely loving. And, and it's the way we can break this cycle.

Monica: It's such a trap that's so easy to fall into because there's nothing more important to us than our children. And because of that,it's easy to understand why we can place our value as parents on how our kids are performing and how they're doing.

And so, like you've said, this is a nice balance of removing our own insecurities and acceptance while also encouraging. This process and them and modeling what that looks like. I love that you brought in storytelling and, and by the way, we have some language in our, in our community called the process and it's small wins build over time.

And that's what you, you teach. Yeah. Failure along the way. Thank you. Those are fantastic, Jennifer,

before we move on, I'm sure you have some tips to Jennifer, but can you help us? I haven't gone first. I would have

convinced you guys, you have your own podcast. I love it. This is settling. I learned this from you. But some people who've heard that language or maybe it's their first time hearing that. And they're like, what does that mean? Settling yourself down teaching. How do you teach a child to settle down when the fear and the anxiety, the failure is coming up?

Jennifer: Yeah. So that's a great question. I mean, I think that in some ways, just to track that we are getting anxious when we're mapping our child's anxiety, Or that our perfectionism is getting kicked up when we see our children failing or succeeding for that matter. And that we're in sometimes without even recognizing it, in a state of mind, in which we're trying to prove something about ourselves through our child.

And so the best way to teach someone else how to settle down is you have to be settled down yourself. So, so you have to start with yourself. And I'll, I'll tell this anecdote.

So my oldest child is on the autism spectrum and then my, I have three children, but then my youngest is not. And they both were taking violin and my youngest wanted to be a violinist from about, you know, 12 months of age.

She just was always wanted it, loved it, craved it. My oldest is more, you know, a mathematician and very, very cerebral. His motor skills are very challenged for him. And so I would sometimes have his experiences of going to these camps where my oldest was the, by far, the oldest child in his respective group. He was sometimes getting tracked by the teachers and adults as odd.

Like they didn't quite understand what was going on. I could track that they were not sure how to relate to him. He would be working so hard, but he would not be doing it as well as even he wanted to be. But he was working so hard. She just like makes me cry, you know, he wanted so much to master it.

And then my daughter would go into her respective classes and she would be the most exceptional and the youngest. Right. And so there was like this duality of, of what it meant about me pulling me in both directions and I could see myself not being a good parent in both situations, just to be really honest about it.

Like, I, I could feel my anxiety going up with my oldest and I could feel my pride in the worst sense of the word with my youngest. And I didn't like either thing about me. I could feel that this was wrong like that it was off. And the thing is whether or not, I wanted it to be true. My children were mapping me because they're smart enough to track who the parent is, you know?

And so I remember actually calling Carolyn when I was at the camp and just having conversation with her and I can't remember specifically. What we were, how I was talking to her about it and what she was saying back, but I just knew, like I I've got to stop this. I've got to do better. And I have to be all in for my oldest child and for his earnestness and his, and nevermind what other people think; that's on them.

I'm giving my full loyalty to his devotion and his earnestness, because that is what makes. And him improving over this week, even if others improve way more or whatever. I mean, like who cares? That's not the point. The point is his willingness to do something outside of his comfort zone. Very challenging for him, tolerating that he's the oldest kid in that group and still doing it anyway.

I mean, and that is the virtue that takes courage. It's like, that is the virtue and that it comes easily for my daughter. That's not really original. It doesn't make her bad. Obviously. It's just what she was more wired up to do. It's not also detracting from her hard work, but put the focus on her hard work, because if I put it on the product, it will undermine her ability when she starts being with people who are better than her.

And therefore many people who will be better than her, it's corroded this internal process because it's been too product focused, which I think I did too much of with her when she was younger. Like, I would be so proud of her ability, but that actually infected, I think this more genuine internal process that belonged to her because she was getting the validation.

You know, I'd love to go back in time and just be clear where I am. You can't really learn it until you're in it. But knowing that, and your kids are still going to struggle with this on some level, even if you are perfect at this if you've really mastered the understanding of this, but nonetheless, the more you can really value this process that belongs to them, learning how to take where they areand move forward that they're only in a race with themselves, right. That that's a kind of help them see that just improving on where they were yesterday. Is because there's nothing wrong with excellence. I mean, sometimes when people say, well, perfect, I'm like, wait a minute. What's what about excellence?

Or what about becoming good at something? Is that bad? Right? And that's not, that's not the issue. As you say all the time, Monica it's about progress, not perfection. So how do I improve on where I am in valuing that? Because that's where all the virtue is the courage to walk into the. The courage to walk towards what you don't know, what you haven't yet mastered.

That's what I work really hard to value in my kids now is walking with them, understanding where they are in their own development, in their own uncertainty, in their own anxiety and valuing explicitly the challenge that they're in and the courage that when they exhibit it and how it comes back to give them greater peace.

When they walk into the uncertainty. And allow themselves to be human in it.