From the Deep

Yesterday I shared a post about dealing with my daughter’s and my own perfectionism. Ironically, I felt it was lacking. I asked myself what I wish I had said, and I realized that I have value to offer in this area. Those of us who are gifted and/or who have gifted children often struggle with perfectionism. It dogs us. It prompts us to attempt tasks over and over. It makes us stay up late at night trying to make things just right. It drives us to tweak the tiniest details, and it never allows us to feel peaceful with what we do. It never lets us rest.

Sometimes perfectionism just plain isn’t nice.

Whether we experience ourselves suffering from it or watch our child doing so, we wish we could just shoo all perfectionistic tendencies away. Why can’t we? Why can’t we just pretend that nothing matters, take things less seriously, emulate others we see who just seem to coast through life?

Sometimes when we have a particularly persistent character trait, it sticks around for a reason. Perfectionism is no different. It is a part of us that we’ve given voice to for one reason or another (or many others). Perhaps we internalized a message from someone as a kid, or made a mistake that we vowed we’d never repeat. Whatever the reason, perfectionism moved in to help us cope with something we couldn’t face way back then…or now. It helped us, and now it feels it has a right to stay.

If you’d like perfectionism to stop affecting you so much, here’s a simple yet powerful exercise to help you. You can also adapt this for your children if they struggle with perfectionism.

• Imagine perfectionism as an entity within you that you can take outside of yourself. With perfectionism as separate from you, take a good look at it. What does it look like? Be detailed here. You can even draw it if you’d like (I recommend this if you’re guiding your children through this exercise.) Is perfectionism male or female? Tall? Short? Does it wear glasses? Have piercings? Create as complete a picture as you possibly can.
• Once you have a complete picture, ask perfectionism what it wants for you. (If you’ve drawn a picture or had your child draw a picture, place the picture on a chair or someplace where you or your child can look at it.) If perfectionism won’t leave you alone, it must have a reason. Is it trying to protect you? If so, how? From what? For what? You might be surprised at its answers. It may want something for you that you want for yourself; it’s just not being skillful in its attempts to help.
• Offer gratitude to perfectionism for the job it has done in your life so far. Even if it hasn’t acted skillfully, it has actually had your best interests at heart. Give it a pat on the back, a plaque of recognition, a gold watch.
• Now consider the relationship you want to have with perfectionism. Does it need to take a vacation? Does it need to job redesign? Does it need to retire to Florida? Has it offered you even something small that you want it to keep offering? If so, what? And how can perfectionism offer it without creating turmoil for you?
• Ask perfectionism if it needs anything from you so it can perform its new role. Maybe it needs your forgiveness. Perhaps it wants to be let off the hook. Sometimes all perfectionism needs is to know you’re going to be okay. If you tell it that, it should be able to adopt its new role without sliding into its old one.
• Start living your new relationship with perfectionism. And remember that, as in all relationships, changing relationship patterns takes time. Sometimes you’ll slip into old ways, make mistakes. Good thing you’ve redesigned your relationship with perfectionism to accept the difficulties along the way. Just remind yourself–and perfectionism–of your new relationship, and start again.

I received the e-mail via BlackBerry: “Dear Parent, Your child has received an infraction…Please discuss the offense with your child, sign the form that’s coming home in your child’s backpack, and have your child return the form tomorrow.”

The e-mail from my kids’ school further outlined the offense: one of my children (name not specified) was out of compliance with the school’s uniform code (the nature of which was also not specified). My children attend a charter school that requires the students to wear uniforms, and they have strict rules to adhere to.

I had been out when I received this e-mail, and because it didn’t name which child received the infraction, I spent my time driving home trying to figure out which child it could be and why. I was bracing myself for whatever awaited me at the end of the school day. If my son received the infraction, he could handle it. He knew the rules, and probably had taken a calculated risk. Plus he doesn’t seem to take this kind of discipline too much to heart.

But then fear crept in. After all, when I looked more closely at the e-mail, one word gave me pause: “her.” Somewhere, they’d used the feminine pronoun. What if my daughter had received the infraction? She’s the younger of the two, and definitely more sensitive when it comes to being disciplined. What could she have done wrong? She usually lines right up with the rules. 

From there, another level of horror set in: What if it was my fault? She had worn pants to school that day, and I knew that the only pants she owned had small holes in the knees, an infraction waiting to happen if anyone had noticed. I immediately went into defense mode. I had bought new pants for her–had them in the car–but they didn’t fit her, and I was going to exchange them. I imagined myself taking the pants and receipt to the school, begging the teacher to take the infraction off my daughter’s record.

My mortification grew worse as I realized that not only would my daughter melt down about an infraction, but on the next Dress-of-Choice Day–the last Friday of every month, when the kids can wear street clothes–she would have lost that privilege and would suffer further embarrassment.

How was I going to handle this? I felt as if I had lead in my stomach. What would I say to her?

I decided that when I picked up the kids, I’d say nothing about the infraction. I’d let the child initiate the conversation. As I proceeded through the carpool line, I took a deep breath. I picked up both my kids, and they both seemed upbeat. I bit my tongue so as not to say anything. 

A couple of minutes into her after-school check-in, my daughter ‘fessed up. She’d received an infraction for not adhering to uniform code. Instead of wearing solid-colored red, white, or blue socks as per the rules, her blue socks sported white snowflakes.

White snowflakes.

But she wasn’t alone. Well, she was probably the only child with snowflakes on her socks, but she wasn’t the only one out of reg. Apparently, a few of the school officials had performed a surprise uniform inspection, and found about half of the children out of compliance: belts missing, socks mismatched, shirts untucked, shoes with too much decoration on them. Even my son wasn’t dressed in line with code: he was wearing two different lengths of socks. He only averted an infraction by scooching the longer sock down to match the other.

When I heard the reason for my daughter’s infraction, I laughed. This was ridiculous! This was an exercise in rule-following to the nth degree, which drives us perfectionists to the brink. Now, I believe in following rules, and we all had signed the school’s registration papers that stated we would follow the uniform code. Technically, my daughter earned the infraction. But the school faculty actively looking for trouble seemed a bit over-controlling to me.

So I did something I don’t think my daughter expected: I said “Congratulations on getting your first infraction. Whew! I’m glad we’re over that hurdle!” Infractions are serious business at this school. I know my kids dreaded receiving one, especially my daughter. I wanted her to know she was okay.

And while expressing to both my kids that I expected them to follow the rules, when we got home, we held a little celebration. We did an Infraction Dance. I signed the form with a flourish. And I think we all felt better.

Many gifted children (and their parents!) struggle with perfectionism. My daughter is one of them, and I understand her pain because I fight perfectionism too. I hope I can give my daughter (and myself) the gift of grace, the gift to determine what we need to take seriously and what we can let slide. I have a hunch a lot more falls into the latter category than the former, though we perfectionists frequently forget that. We have to let up, let off some steam, and choose our priorities.

What is your relationship to perfectionism? Do your kids struggle with it? Do you? What relationship would you like to have with it? And how do you cope with it? Please share!

P.S. After writing this blog post, I struggled with whether it was good enough, and I couldn’t brainstorm the “perfect” title. LOL! Perfectionism is so insidious!

Every cell in my body compelled me to run away, but I didn’t. “I can’t do this, Mom! Why can’t I do this?” My eleven-year-old son had just acquired his first set of contact lenses and, now at home, was attempting to put them in his eyes. When he received them from the eye doctor, the doctor’s assistant who helped him learn the procedure declared him a natural. Of course he’s a natural. He’s a natural at everything he tries.

Except for this, apparently. Whatever magic happened at the doctor’s office, it didn’t come home with us. So day after day my son spent at least thirty minutes attempting–sometimes successfully and other times not so much–to put his contacts in. Since I, too, wear contacts, my angst-ridden son would cry out to me for help. In despair he’d ask me why he couldn’t do this. And though every cell in my body wanted to run away, I knew I needed to stay and help my son understand four things:

1. That while he’s a natural at most things, making them seem easy, not all things are simple to do;
2. That this experience was a good one for him–now he knew how others felt trying to do the same activities that come so easily to him;
3. That when he bumps up against a tough task, he can stick with it and eventually master it; and
4. That I would stick with him through it, no matter how much anger or despair he expressed.