Helping Children Strive for Excellence Without the Stress:
Understanding and Supporting Perfectionism
Perfectionism can be both a strength and a challenge for children. While setting high personal standards can promote motivation and academic success, excessive concern over mistakes and fear of failure can lead to stress, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Research highlights two key dimensions of perfectionism: perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns. Understanding these differences can help parents support their child’s growth while fostering a healthy mindset toward challenges and mistakes.
Perfectionistic Strivings: This refers to setting high personal standards and striving for excellence. It is linked to positive traits such as conscientiousness, persistence, positive emotions, and strong academic performance.
Perfectionistic Concerns: This involves excessive worry over making mistakes, self-doubt, and fear of how others evaluate one’s performance. It is associated with negative outcomes such as low self-esteem, anxiety, and even depression.
This same research highlights the high overlap between these two dimensions. While individuals with high perfectionistic strivings often experience more positive outcomes, those with high perfectionistic concerns tend to struggle with emotional well-being. The study also suggests that perfectionistic concerns may lead to lower life satisfaction due to the use of ineffective or even harmful coping strategies.
How Can We Help Children Manage Perfectionism?
One effective strategy for supporting children- especially those prone to perfectionistic concerns- is positive reinterpretation coping (also known as cognitive reappraisal). This involves helping children reframe challenges and mistakes in a constructive way rather than viewing them as failures.
What Is Positive Reframing?
Positive reframing is a mindset shift that encourages looking at mistakes and setbacks as opportunities for learning and growth. Instead of seeing a challenge as proof of inadequacy, children can learn to see it as a chance to improve, be creative, or develop resilience.
Research from Harvard’s Stress & Development Lab explains that positive reframing helps individuals regulate emotions and view situations in a more constructive way. This strategy has been found to be especially beneficial for those with high perfectionistic concerns.
Benefits of Positive Reframing:
Reduces stress and anxiety by shifting focus from failure to learning
Helps develop a growth mindset, leading to greater resilience
Encourages problem-solving rather than avoidance of difficult tasks
Improves emotional regulation and overall well-being
Practical Strategies for Parents
Parents play a key role in helping children manage perfectionism in a healthy way. Here are some ways to support positive reappraisal at home:
Model Growth Mindset Language: Instead of saying, “You’re so smart!” try, “I love how you kept trying, even when it was hard.” This shifts the focus from fixed traits to effort and perseverance.
Encourage “What Can We Learn?” Moments: When your child makes a mistake, guide them through reflection: “What did you learn from this?” or “What could you do differently next time?”.
Reframe Setbacks Together: If your child is frustrated about a mistake, help them see another perspective: “I know that was tough, but now you know what doesn’t work. That’s one step closer to figuring it out!”
Praise Effort Over Perfection: Recognize persistence, creativity, and problem-solving rather than just results.
Share Personal Examples: Talk about a time when you made a mistake and how you learned from it. Children benefit from seeing that mistakes are a normal part of life.
By incorporating these strategies, parents can help children balance their drive for excellence with self-compassion, ensuring they strive for success without becoming overwhelmed by self-criticism.