Emotional Immaturity In Parents Leads To Perfectionism In Children

As a psychologist, I struggle when parents ask me, “Is it my fault that my child is so hard on themselves?” My struggle isn’t with the answer, it’s how that parent will understand it. The short answer is yes, it is partially the parent’s fault. If a parent sticks to the short answer, the answer is another dagger to their ill-mended heart. But, the long answer is that the parents themselves have their issues culminating from expecting perfection from them and others as a safeguard against future traumas like the ones they’ve endured in the past.

Their emotional development has been stunted by the coping skills of past generations. By the time the person becomes an adult, these skills become so ingrained that they forget all that they went through, and if they were passed down from older generations, they aren’t even questioned. 

What is Perfectionism?

It is a facade, a desperate attempt to feel important to the important people in our life. Perfectionism begins at an early age. At some point, the child received a message from caregivers that their significance was measured by their ability to be useful, not problematic, good, high achieving. Somewhere, the child learned that being them wasn’t enough, they needed to do more to be loved.

Children begin to think “if only … I could be a good student, stay quiet, not get angry, stop fidgeting… then my mom/dad would stop getting angry at me, and they would really truly love me. The child’s real self is shoved to the side along with feelings of anger for betraying who they truly are for the sake of acceptance. The anger is towards their parent’s lack of unconditional acceptance and love. But, it is very dangerous to be angry with the one who takes care of you, so the anger is turned inward and shame spreads.

This is the antithesis of connection for the sake of love in its purest form. After living through moments of varying degrees of instability, betrayal, and abandonment, the child learns that they better continue on this perfectionism path. Perfectionism is the never-ending need for stability and safety found in the fantasy of control over inanimate objects and people to keep the world structured and predictable. 

When can parents recognize these traits?

For some parents, when they recognize these controlling tendencies in their children, it’s like they are lambasted again for their inability to get it right. It’s exhausting when you spend your life running towards perfectionism only to see you’re being derailed by piles of its shit growing on all sides.

Some parents are ready to do the inner work to find authenticity and connection versus control and manipulation. Some are not. It’s not easy. It’s rewiring the brain, rewriting the story, living in the now. But, by finding meaning in your own struggles, you can find solace in another way of living life. Not so that your child won’t deal with these issues, but so that you heal, and by proxy, they will too.