Do you have perfectionist tendencies? Do you have high standards for yourself and your kids? High standards in and of themselves are not necessarily a problem. What makes high standards bad is when you are hard on yourself and kids when those standards aren't met. If you are like me, you may not always be conscious of your perfectionism, nor of the cost to your kids and their self-esteem.
For me, my consciousness of my perfectionism has come as I've struggled with my daughter's tendency to be critical and harsh with herself and family. It took me awhile to see that the roots of her harshness was her own perfectionism which she learned, you guessed it, Stacker 3 from me. Along with this realization has come the beginnings of real improvement in her behavior as we both are softening.
Before figuring this out, I tried everything I could think of to get her to be more gentle. As a parenting educator, I know of many tools to use, and yet nothing worked. She was manifesting my own subtle, but real tendency to be harsh with myself and those I love when we fall short of perfection. Like a persistent weed, until I saw the problem and worked on the real source, nothing made much difference.
Parenting is a brilliant design. By externalizing my issues, I created the urgency that I needed to work on healing this next level of perfectionism. I used to be such a serious perfectionist that I am amazed that I could function! I started working on overcoming this debilitating trait 2 decades ago in college! Now, as a parent, I have been given the gift of discovering the next layer of my own criticalness, and a chance to heal.
I have no doubt that I would not have seen the issue, let alone addressed it if it weren't for my daughter acting out. I was more-or-less content to live with my sometimes harsh inner critic. I can ignore my critic, or more truthfully, I was so used to the voice that it feels comfortable and acceptable. However, I can't live with my daughter's criticism, whether it is directed at herself or others. Because I am so clear that her harshness is not healthy, my somewhat hidden perfectionism has come to light where it can be healed.
My daughter has given me a profoundly healing opportunity and I am deeply grateful to her. I am committed to raising her to have the best start in life that I can possibly offer her. That is only possible if I work out my issues, and in this case, it is my tendency to be harsh when the highest standards aren't met. The great news is that as I am healing, I am becoming more and more gentle on all of us. Now she is manifesting that gentleness by being more patient and understanding with all of us.
I'd love to hear from you about your parenting experiences. You can email me your questions or comments at [mailto:info@greatparentingpractices.com]info@greatparentingpractices.com, or check out my business page at http://www.Facebook.com/GreatParentingPractices Leave a comment or start a discussion!
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To great parenting!
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