Pressure and Perfectionism in Kids and Teens
The “Perfect” Storm
As my daughter who “retired” from competitive gymnastics tries to find a new activity, her common response to suggestions is: “I’m not good at that.” My husband and I retort in unison, “Because you’ve never done it!” When I shared this with another therapist who works with kids and teens, she reminded me that this expectation to perform at high levels has become more and more pervasive for our young people as cultural pressures on success and performance (like college competitiveness) have ballooned. Just one unfortunate result of this pressure is avoidance of new things, including the discomfort of not being “good at it.” This avoidance may actually be a sign of perfectionism—a striving for flawlessness filled with criticism of self and others—which has been on the rise in our kids as much as 40% since 1989.
Perfectionism is known to carry risk for depression and anxiety, also increasing in our youth. Parents everywhere should take note, and take action. It’s not all our fault, but we may inadvertently play a role, and we can definitely be part of the solution.
As parents, scientists, journalists, teachers, and just about everyone concerned with children and teens have been wringing collective hands about the alarming increase in mental health problems in youth, we should also collectively examine the role played by pressure and perfectionism–what we impose and what our culture imposes.
Perfectionism in Real Life
We may have a vision of perfectionistic kids as spending extra hours doing homework, re-writing the same essay over and over to get it right, becoming upset over making a small mistake and outright exclaiming that they must be perfect. All of these signs can show up as red flags that a child is a perfectionist. However, the signs can be more subtle and insidious, including some surprising features:
Appearing disconnected and uninvested in school: When kids feel anxious about performing well, this can lead to freezing and/or avoiding, which can look like laziness and lack of motivation.
Avoidance of trying new activities: Similar to what happens academically, starting a new activity often brings up worries about not being good at it. To avoid the unpleasant feeling of making mistakes and being “bad” at the activity, kids resist starting in the first place.
Average or below average performance: This may be counterintuitive, but perfectionistic kids may work below their ability because they fear failure if they try harder, which feels worse than failing when they didn’t really try. Or, they don’t turn in assignments they worked hard on because they deem the work as “not good enough.”
If you have noticed these tendencies in your children, know that they are far from alone. In an analysis of 84 studies between 1989 and 2021 looking at perfectionism in college students (over 20,000 participants), all three types of perfectionism rose: the “self-oriented perfectionism” score increased by 10 percent, “socially prescribed” went up 33 percent and “other-oriented” by 16 percent.
In these studies of tens of thousands of American, Canadian, and British college students, parental expectations perceived as excessive by their teens related to high levels of “socially prescribed perfectionism.” This is defined as “the perception that other people and society require perfection.” Parental expectations also affected the other two types of perfectionism: self-oriented (applying perfection standards to the self) and other-oriented (expecting others to be perfectionistic). All three types affect the others, creating a perfectionistic storm.
Parental Pressure
In the analyses of results from the above studies, students’ perceptions of parental expectations, criticism and their combined parental pressure all increased significantly. Student perception of high parental expectations topped the list, rising an average of 40% over this 32-year time period.
“Instead of ensuring our children’s survival, pressuring our children to perform and succeed is often not nurturing their growth, but holding them back.”
Study authors, however, give parents a bit of a break. They frame their findings in the larger social context of parents raising their children within increasing cultural expectations for performance to be successful. We are wired by evolution to ensure our children have traits to survive and be protected; in the current social environment, that means keeping up with higher and higher bars.
I appreciate one researcher’s explanation: “Parents are placing excessive expectations on their children because they think, correctly, that society demands it or their children will fall down the social ladder.”
However, I also see room for parents to be agents of change. In the spirit of autonomy-supportive parenting, we can start by tuning in and listening to what’s really important to our children instead of to us. To do this, we may also need to question cultural assumptions of what “success” means. For example, is it really necessary for our child to gain entrance into a top-ranked college to have a healthy, meaningful life? I’m sure we all know very unhappy people who graduated from the “best,” and people living lives of meaning and contentment who did not.
Social Media for the Blame, Again
We can easily expand the circle of blame to other aspects of our modern culture that infiltrate the psyches of our young people (and us). I’m not on the “social media is all bad” bandwagon because I don’t usually ascribe to absolutes. There are usually some positives to find in the use of social media, like my Facebook groups that remind me of summer camp registration deadlines.
When it comes to pressure and perfectionism, however, the curated worlds of social media present a constant stream of photo-shopping all of the imperfections and struggle out of real life. Influencers earn more in a year than I might in a lifetime by showcasing filtered forms of beauty and making it appear as if anyone can set up a YouTube channel and get millions of followers (and dollars). It’s easy to be rich and beautiful—and therefore culturally successful—without effort!
This presents a strange type of pressure for our young ones scrolling through their algorithms. Their lives should look as good, without trying hard. Therefore, there’s pressure to be perfect on social media, but through the lens of outcome only—no process. So, adults and children alike absorb that we can and should be perfect like what we see on social media–and it should take zero effort!
Excellence Everywhere
Striving for excellence has been regarded as healthier than perfectionism as it involves openness to learning, acceptance of mistakes, and a focus on the process instead of the outcome (growth mindset). However, the problem arises when parents and others (eg, coaches, teachers) impose goals for excellence on children rather than children striving from their own internal motivation.
Compared to our childhoods, the external expectations to be excellent seem to have become more intense, at least in certain segments of the American population. These expectations undermine the whole concept of excellence since the point is it’s a small portion of people who reach that standard. One example I see is in school districts where many parents are convinced their child is gifted – a very high bar to reach, and by definition, a tiny percentage of children. (I have gripes with the construct, but it’s a part of education for now.)
Then we have the modern youth sports culture, where fun and friendship have become consumed by competition and specialization at young ages. It’s harder than ever to try out a bunch of activities just for fun, especially in later elementary years, let alone in adolescence. The subtle messaging of playing in travel leagues that require try-outs and hiring private coaching lessons on the side is that we expect excellence in exchange for this investment of resources. (I’m not innocent as my 8-year-old enthusiastically prepares to try out for travel soccer in the spring.)
I fear that even those of us who articulate messages of acceptance for our children’s average skill level, and promote practice and learning over perfection, are still operating in a larger cultural whirlpool of aiming for excellence. Everywhere. All the time. There is no way around the reality that this places pressure on our kids. Pressure that can cause perfectionism, which then trickles into quitting, avoiding, and shutting down.
What We CAN Do
On an individual level in our homes, the more we can consistently talk about and role model acceptance of our own mistakes and failure, the more we protect our children against the social and cultural traps of perfectionism. In the process of writing a book, for example, I shared with my children the many rejections from publishers before an eventual “yes.” I talked about how hard I had worked and how important it was to me to author a parenting book, and that it was possible it could never happen. I’ll never forget when I shared the exciting news of signing my book contract and my daughter said, “your dream came true!” Hopefully she took note that I persisted through many failures despite no promise of success. We may not be able to completely counteract cultural forces, but our messaging and modeling over time becomes part of our child’s inner voice and an example of how to respond to failure and being less than perfect.
In addition, I present two revolutionary ideas for consideration to shift the tides of pressure and perfectionism. The greater number of parents who commit to pushing these waves of change, the stronger influence we can exert to shape healthier performance cultures for all of our children.
Get rid of the “all As” expectation. Replace with the goal of helping our child develop their own internal motivation for learning, which results in greater effort, and eventually better performance. However, this takes time and patience, as well as meeting your child where they are at with what they enjoy about school, and what they don’t. Instead of pressuring the report card results each semester, take a wider view of how your child is engaging with learning and their school environment.
Accept average instead of encourage excellence. (I can already see the snarky comments I would get if I said this on social media.) Another mother and I joked at our daughters’ gymnastics meet full of passionate and pressuring parents that we should make sweatshirts emblazoned in bling with the phrase “this is not the Olympics.” In sports especially, the pressure to be a superstar can completely shut down the joy. As my son prepares to try out for travel soccer in the spring, I regularly remind him that he loves his casual rec league and he’ll hopefully have fun playing soccer no matter which league he is in.
Both calls to action shift focus to the longer view of fostering a love of process (eg, learning in school, playing a sport or instrument) rather than emphasizing academic accolades or trophies. This love of the process without an attachment to outcome lasts our children well beyond the years of GPA and competitions, which become fleeting memories in adulthood. In a plot twist, this attention on process over outcome has been shown to improve performance. When kids can relax and enjoy, they are more likely to discover their own internal motivation to succeed—however that looks and feels to them.
Be the Change
It’s important to take stock of where our well-intended parenting approaches or family choices (eg, intense extra-curriculars, enrolling in competitive schools) may contribute to the problem of pressure and perfectionism in our kids.
Wired to make sure our children survive and keep up with the species, the reptilian parts of our brains have gone haywire as demands of our modern world have outpaced our primal instincts. Instead of ensuring our children’s survival, pressuring our children to perform and succeed is often not nurturing their growth, but holding them back.
The empowering part of admitting where we may be part of the problem is that we can take action to be part of the solution. Step back and zoom out to your child’s future—not of dean’s lists and athletic scholarships—but of resilience against the cultural pressures on performance. Think of what you can do to message and model what serves your children as future adults—a future of enjoying the ride instead of stressing about the destination.
References
Perfectionism is increasing over time, A Meta-Analysis of Birth Cohort Differences From 1989 to 2016, Psychological Bulletin
Rising parental expectations linked to perfectionism in college students, American Psychological Association
**You can pre-order my book Autonomy-Supportive Parenting: Reduce Parental Burnout and Raise Competent, Confident Children on Amazon and Bookshop.