Perfectionism can be a real trap. Learn here how to teach your child that sometimes things change and it's ok.
Timestamps:
00:00 Why children create physical safety through controlling as a substitute for being loved.
01:41 Example of positive response to child's demands.
03:19 Example of child correcting mother and how to respond.
Transcript:
A mother writes me and says that her daughter, Ellen, age three, is quite particular about having everything a certain way, and if people or things deviate from the usual, she can become quite insistent on “correcting” them until everything is “right” again.
Perfectionism Begins in Childhood
This is a very common pattern that begins in childhood, and then these kids grow up to become adults who are controlling, rigid, obsessive-compulsive. It can ruin their lives as they control people and things, essentially creating a prison for themselves and others.
Turns out that Ellen has grown up in an environment that has changed a lot: father in and out, father emotionally unstable, moving to one home after another. Children need to feel loved and safe.
Real safety comes from feeling loved. After that feeling, everything else becomes relatively non-threatening, but without love, they create physical safety as a substitute.
Obviously, a certain amount of physical safety is desirable—we wouldn’t let a toddler play in the middle of a busy road—but after reasonable safety, controlling things becomes emotionally confining and a habit that interferes with everything else.
We have to teach them to be flexible, and to identify what matters and what doesn’t. So we’ll look at just a few examples from Ellen.
How to Deal with Perfectionism
Mom says, “if she spills food on herself, she cries out and shouts, “Clean it, clean it.” So I get a wet cloth from the sink.”
Greg: No.
(1) When you go to get a cloth, without meaning to, you CONFIRM that something is “wrong” and must be fixed right then. You confirm the legitimacy of her obsession with order. Really.
(2) You cripple her by helping, because she learns that OTHER PEOPLE have to eliminate her discomfort.
Solution? You CALMLY say, “You know how to clean it up.”
If she protests, you repeat.
- Your CALM testifies that her panic is unwarranted, without correcting her.
- You remove the drama of her obsession, which is one reason she does it. ONE.
- You make her responsible for maintaining order, eliminating rescuing and victimhood.
Mom gives another example. “If I sing the wrong words to a song, she says NOOO letting me know I was wrong.”
Greg: Seems so innocent, but it’s not. This kid will grow up to control everything and everybody.
I’ve seen it over and over. Woman who wants badly to take care of granddaughter.
Can’t because she can’t stand messes, bugs, dirt, disorder, and the kid has all that.
Greg: What to do?
- Be CALM again. In fact, laughing.
- Make light of it. Sing it wrong again. TELL her there are many ways to sing the song.
- She’s just USED to one way.
- Encourage HER to make up a new word or sentence for the song.
- You make up another one.
- Show her that we don’t sing to get it RIGHT but to have FUN.
Mom: She'll do the same with her books she has all memorized… she has an amazing mind… she memorizes things so quickly… So I can’t vary the story.
Greg: Same as with songs. Tell her that people can make up their own stories, and it’s all right. SHE can tell the story her way, but she can’t control how you do it, or how others do it. It's an essential life lesson.
Perfectionism can be a real trap. So teach her that sometimes things change. She MUST learn that.
