Be careful what you wish for…
Dear all,
Have you ever read one of the Little Miss or Mr Men books? If so, you will recognise Mr Perfect. I have another question for you – would you rather be perfect, or accepted for who you are? If you chose perfection over acceptance, what would ‘perfect’ look like for you?
Whilst many people describe themselves as perfectionists, it isn’t necessarily a positive trait. Perfectionism is striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluation and worrying about what other people think of you.
Perfectionism drives people to attempt to achieve an unattainable ideal and when they don’t reach their goals, the consequences are negative. Ironically, the pursuit of success actually keeps the perfectionist focused on failure, completely undermining any success.
Michael J Fox, the actor who lives with Parkinson’s Disease, said:
“I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God’s business”.
Perfectionists consider themselves to be failing unless they reach their own impossibly high standards. They are not resilient because even mild setbacks are seen as catastrophes. The push for perfection is undermining what our young people need in order to succeed and be happy. We want to launch our pupils into young adulthood, poised to be successful, not perfect. In a post-COVID world, they need Friendship, Trust, Wisdom, Compassion, Endurance, Humility and Hope more than ever. They need to be curious about a world we don’t know yet, equipped with the creativity and innovation for solutions and strategies for that which is not yet imagined.
We know from the work of Carol Dweck that children can’t be perfect; life rewards taking risks, setting challenges and seizing opportunities; mindsets are at the heart of this. Some mindsets make us afraid to try and end up keeping us trapped in perfectionism. However, with a growth mindset, effort is what activates ability, and setbacks are a natural part of learning.
In our culture, we move relentlessly towards greater emphasis on achievement, but as educators we resist this and ask children what they have learned, not their grade. We do this to avoid measuring their lives only in terms of achievement or losing the capacity for wonder and awe. Imagine looking at a rainbow and complaining that the width of one colour was narrower than another? Ridiculous, and yet that is exactly what we do when we judge ourselves for our imperfections. The potentially devastating consequences of perfectionism on mental health need to be recognised. Even mild cases can interfere with a child’s quality of life, affecting personal relationships, education and health.
Today, however, the impossible standards are set much closer to home, not by celebrities and models but by classmates and friends. With social media, our children can curate their lives; resulting feeds read like highlights, showing only the best and most enviable moments, while concealing efforts, struggles and the ordinary aspects of day-to-day life. We compare other people’s polished, edited final-cut movies to our own behind the scenes, unedited, fly-on-the-wall documentaries. There’s evidence that those images are causing distress for many of our children.
We must help our children be comfortable with imperfection because we will not protect them from failure, and we cannot make everything easy. We want them to feel accepted for being imperfect, for trying their best, for risk taking and for persisting when it would be easier to give up. We are not perfect because we are a work in progress; striving, failing and bouncing back, applying our effort into the journey of becoming ourselves. Perfection is unachievable, unimaginable and undesirable.
I’m only human – what about you? Would you rather be perfect or accepted for who you are?
Jason Whiskerd
