I see a lot written about how perfectionism is a ‘trauma response’ and often blame parents for this. This take irritates me no end.
I recently got into a discussion on Threads about this. Someone posted that she was positive her strive for being perfect didn’t come from her parents, and I completely agree.
Looking back, the messages I got growing up about being perfect mostly came from school. There was a bit of a back up from parents & grandparents (my grandpa would pay us for the number of A, B and Cs we got on our school reports), but it was mostly from school.
The messages would sound like some of these:
Being told our work wasn’t up to scratch, and that we could ‘do better’.
Being marked down if my working out on maths problems weren’t what the teacher wanted, even if the answer was correct.
Being awarded for getting 100% on a test as well as those who got the top marks getting awards at the end of the year.
Being told off if things weren’t exactly as expected.
Do these sound familiar?
These were the sorts of things that were drummed into me from a young age. I can remember one teacher give us a hard time if we didn’t get anything less than 100% because, according to her, anything less was a fail! This is the only subject I cheated on tests as I was struggling and her threats didn’t make it feel safe for me to ask for help.
In my adult life, these messages have stayed with me and are often reinforced in society. It’s those high achievers that get ahead, they are the ones who win awards and are put up as being examples and people we should strive to be, and anything less is a failure. Even in online games, there are ones that will literally say ‘you fail’ if you don’t pass a level.
In many business programs I’ve done, the trainers teach perfectionism. They teach that your content has to be perfect to get customers, your product or service, your speech, whatever… they say that everything must be perfect or close to perfect for you to be a success.
There are some that are changing now to teach that done is better than perfect, however those early messages are hard to ignore…
When my kids were at school, the grading system in reports changed so that C meant you were at the expected level, B was 6 months ahead, and A was 12 months ahead. It will be interesting to see if things change for the next generation as they grow…
The strive for perfection isn’t always a ‘trauma response’, it can be, but not always. Sometimes it can be years of grown ups, teachers, and experts rewarding those with perfect grades, being told that being perfect is the only way to succeed, and believing them…
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