Teenagers are faced with an immense amount of pressure to outperform their peers in academics and extracurricular activities. As students, they are encouraged from a young age to perform well in school, so they can attend a prestigious university and go on to lead a successful life. This mentality has been exacerbated by academic institutions putting students on the honors track as early as middle school and beginning standardized testing as soon as the third grade in states like Minnesota and Washington. It’s admirable for teens to set challenging goals and a high standard for themselves, but when does self-discipline turn into crippling perfectionism?
Self-judgment is a persistent mantra in the mind of a perfectionist as they anticipate the multitude of ways they can fall short of their goals and lofty expectations.
As Melissa Dahl of New York Magazine wrote in her article, “perfectionism is more than pushing yourself to do your best to achieve a goal; it’s a reflection of an inner self mired in anxiety.” Perfectionism in an anxious teen can lead to an absolute stalemate in terms of productivity and deplete the student’s personal confidence. Students in the pursuit of perfectionism will often identify themselves with their work; not obtaining a goal or receiving a low grade can be devastating to a perfectionist teen. Self-judgment is a persistent mantra in the mind of a perfectionist as they anticipate the multitude of ways they can fall short of their goals and lofty expectations. These teens are often considered as high-performers and over-achievers, but they may not have the strategies in place to manage their time and effort. Establishing strategies for managing priorities and personal expectations will help your teen become more effective with their time and satisfied with their work.
As a parent, how can you tell the difference between strong work ethic or debilitating perfectionism in your child? High-performing perfectionists are often adept at masking their turmoil in order to maintain their carefully curated image of accomplishment and success. They may undermine their work that others view as exceptional as they isolate each individual flaw. Teens may procrastinate until the last-minute to complete an assignment unless they are certain their game plan will secure them an A for fear of not completing the task the “right” way. An inability to accept constructive criticism or cope with mistakes are also strong indicators of excessive perfectionism.
It can manifest itself in a variety of different ways in teens. Some perfectionists are masters at putting up the façade that they are handling their responsibilities with relative ease, whereas other perfectionists may be viewed as lazy and unmotivated due to their unrelenting fear of failure. Regardless, the consequences of perfectionism are clear: social isolation, depression, anxiety disorders, procrastination and an inability to focus on tasks to name a few.
Not sure how to help your teen? There are ways parents can help their teens in breaking the cycle of anxiety-fueled perfectionism. Parents can help redirect their teen’s unrealistic thinking by reframing their critical judgments into constructive statements. Perfectionists often get so wrapped up in the minute details that they don’t take the opportunity to step back and evaluate the bigger picture. Helping a student change their perspective to view their work from a more objective standpoint can quell perfectionism anxiety. You can do this by helping your teen prioritize their responsibilities and by asking them what level of mediocre they are willing to tolerate in order to complete their project; creating a realistic schedule for completing goals will alleviate stress by making students feel like they have a plan in place; and breaking a project into bite-sized pieces and deciding how much time you will spend on them in advance will make completing tasks far less daunting throughout the process. It can be difficult for perfectionists to realize their over-achieving mentality is actually harming them overall, but with a strategy and consistent support, perfectionism can be managed to guide your teen towards being more effective and satisfied with their work.
By: Brianna Harstad, AiT Contributor