Perfectionism is a problem that has been cropping up more and more regularly in our work with students. It often lies beneath the surface of other problems and can be difficult to spot, but successfully identifying it is always an important “ahah!” moment in our journey with the student.
So what is perfectionism, and how can you recognise it in your child — or yourself?
Perfectionism is a tendency to adopt unrealistic or unnecessarily high expectations about one’s standard of work. A student who is a perfectionist is also likely to tie their sense of self-worth to their accomplishments at school.
A common misconception is that a perfectionist is someone who has great attention to detail and cares about the quality of their work. Those are very positive traits, and while they can go together with perfectionism, not everyone who cares about the quality of their work has the crippling expectations of perfectionism.
The perfectionism that we talk to our students about has a distinctly negative impact on them — on their habits around schoolwork, on their mental wellbeing, and even (perhaps surprisingly) on the work they produce. Students with perfectionist tendencies may struggle to balance all their responsibilities, and may suffer from stress and anxiety, which then creates obstacles to them putting their best efforts in. They may even avoid challenges altogether out of fear that they won’t succeed.
So how does perfectionism manifest? 
In addition to the psychological aspects already mentioned — anxiety and stress about schoolwork which is not proportionate to the cause of that stress — certain behaviours can also indicate perfectionist tendencies. Common manifestations of perfectionism include:
- Spending excessive time redoing notes or other visual work to make them look good
- Struggling to make a start
- Procrastination resulting in missed deadlines or submitted work that does not reflect the student’s capabilities
- Stretching writing tasks out for a long time
None of the above examples, taken alone, are enough to isolate perfectionism as the problem. But if they do crop up consistently that is a good reason to start a conversation about why it is happening, especially if the student is already prone to suffer from stress or anxiety about their schoolwork.
Learning from our students: perfectionism as a “superstition”
We have started many of these conversations with students over the years. In one recent conversation, the student had a great way of describing what the issue is for her: she hadn’t thought of herself as a perfectionist, but she did think she was “really superstitious” about some of her schoolwork. She described the way that she would worry about what could go wrong if she didn’t get her homework done “right”, and would consequently spend an unwarranted amount of time working on it. She thought this was being “superstitious” because she knew the fears were unfounded—nothing that bad was going to happen, so her worry was basically irrational. Which is exactly how perfectionism works.
This moment of recognition — the “ahah” moment in which perfectionism is named and admitted — is the first step to moving past it. In the next blog post, we’ll discuss some approaches to overcoming perfectionism and helping students develop a more realistic and sustainable attitude to their work.
If you would like assistance in supporting your child to overcome perfectionism, or other impediments to doing their best work at school, please get in touch with us.
