Is Your Child a High Achiever?

Marco (not his real name) was a star long-distance runner for a local high school, earned straight As, and excelled at math. He was polite, clean cut, very thin, and ambitious, wanting to be an engineer.

While on a hiking trip together, we stopped for breakfast before our climb up and down a mountain. We noted he talked extensively about his diet and he drank only water even though he hadn’t eaten much at the prior evening’s meal.

Continuing to excel in high school, Marco earned scholarships and went off to attend college. He told his parents about his favorite classes and excellent grades through his four years. He showed them letters about academic awards and honors he garnered. As his senior year was ending, he chose not to attend the graduation ceremony or “walk” for his diploma, but his proud family threw a party to celebrate his accomplishments.

Then something shocking happened. During his graduation party, Marcos informed his parents that he actually hadn’t graduated but had dropped out of college a couple years prior. We can’t imagine his parents’ dismay that their son felt the need to lie about his life and didn’t know he was struggling. We recently heard he’s working various unstable jobs trying to support himself. His life is very different than what he had envisioned back in high school. Although no longer engaged in what in retrospect were likely perfectionistic goals, Marco’s life was difficult.

Many of us have a tradition of taking stock of our blessings on Thanksgiving, which is now just around the corner. If you’re a parent of a school-aged child, you may feel thankful that your children are excelling in academics and activities like clubs, music, or sports. You may feel proud of their straight As, getting a lead role in the school play, being elected to an office, or scoring on the varsity football team.

We all want our kids to succeed in school, activities, and eventual careers, but sometimes achievement expectations go overboard and cause more problems than benefits. These expectations can come from parents, schools, community members, and young people themselves. And sometimes parents are falsely reassured about their children’s well-being through achievements such as high grades and performance.

Involvement in supervised activities with other youth aids psychosocial development, and good grades are linked to desirable things such as career options. Including us, many experts believe that grades should be as good as a child can reasonably obtain without excessive pressure or distress, cheating, or losing the focus on long-term learning of material. But when achievement expectations gear towards unattainable, unrealistic perfection in terms of grades, wins, or awards, it reflects perfectionism, a mindset with detrimental consequences.

Studies show that about 3 in 10 teenagers have some problem with perfectionism, more commonly in girls than boys. There appears to be a rise in the number of youths who have a perfectionistic mindset, in which:

• They think they must achieve at very high levels in at least one activity, or at multiple activities (such as grades and a sport)
• Achievement is tied to worth as a person—so if they don’t achieve what is expected or desired, they believe they are unworthy failures or losers
• Achievement is pursued at all costs, even when it causes psychological or physical harm
• Self-evaluation and self-criticism is prominent, with frequent doubts and concerns about performance
• The middle ground of being “good enough” is viewed as failure instead of a normal, realistic state of being human

Perfectionism is linked to mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, as well as self-harm and…wait for it…reduced academic performance. One would think that students who believe they must get top grades might do better, but the effect of perfectionistic thinking and pressure appears to have the opposite effect.

High expectations to achieve can also reduce the focus on more important character development and learning life-skills necessary for mental health, happiness, and resilience to adversity.

As they were interviewed about their daughter’s inconceivable death by suicide, loving parents of 17-year-old Alexandra Valoras described her as a high achiever who enjoyed life. Alexandra made straight As, was an officer of her high school junior class and excelled at the advanced science of robotics. Her heartbroken parents reported feeling blindsided in the absence of warning signs of their daughter’s intense struggles and suicide.

But Alexandra’s diary discovered after her death clearly displayed her story of despair. Despite her high achievements, she wrote on page after page that she was a failure along with specific other self-loathing sentiments. Thus, she apparently hid her inner agony behind a mask of happiness.

We’ll never know exactly why Alexandra’s suicide happened and if she suffered from perfectionism, but her story speaks to the link between high achievement and possible distress, anxiety, depression, and self-harm. Or at the very least, it illustrates that high achievement doesn’t mean that all is well in our children’s lives.

Here are some warning signs of perfectionism in youth and young adults. The more of these that you see or suspect, the more concerning it is:

1. Acting as if they want or try to be the best at everything they do, or to do things perfectly.
2. Feeling less worthy or putting themselves down (saying they are stupid or lazy) after experiencing a disappointment, loss, bad grade, or rejection.
3. Talking about feeling high pressure to excel. Although some young people pressure themselves toward heights of achievement, other people such as parents, directors, and coaches can impose unrealistically high expectations, resulting in similar perfectionistic thinking and bad outcomes.
4. Being involved in many kinds of extracurricular activities because of pressure to achieve rather than healthier reasons such as enjoyment, passion, and opportunities to make friends, learn new skills, and have new experiences.
5. Having very high grades over time. We’ll probably get some flack for this one, but high academic achievers may become very anxious about not getting straight As because it would equal failure and erode self-approval or other people’s approval. And the pressure to continue to achieve high grades can cause anxiety, depression, cheating, substance use, and physical symptoms like insomnia. On the other hand, unexpected significant drop in grades is a warning sign of various troubles.

Recognizing the warning signs of perfectionism is a start, but knowing what to do when you see them is key. Here are some suggestions to try to help your child change this way of thinking, or better yet, to prevent this harmful mindset altogether.

Ten tips to help your children avoid perfectionism or challenge it when it rears its ugly head:

1. Even if you don’t suspect the problem, talk about the pitfalls of perfectionism. You could say, “No one is perfect and achieves everything they want, and trying to be perfect is exhausting, feels bad, and makes it harder to do things well. Some people only feel good about themselves when they do things very well, but that isn’t healthy. How well you perform doesn’t affect how good a person or how valuable you are.” You can use real-life examples to kick off the conversation, such as when a sports figure plays poorly, or a show character makes a regrettable mistake.
2. Let children achieve through their own efforts as long as it is good enough, even if they could have done better with your help.
3. Keep your expectations realistic and focused on their character, work effort, and coping skills.
4. Let kids make mistakes and learn from them, instead of attempting to prevent mistakes by sheltering and doing things they should be doing themselves.
5. After you make a mistake, share it along with what you’ll do differently next time to avoid making the same mistake again. Own your mistake by not blaming others, but learning from it and moving on instead of wallowing in it. You can say, “Everyone makes mistakes and it doesn’t change how I feel about myself. I’m still learning, which is smart.”
6. When kids experience disappointment, failure, or make a mistake, observe their responses and challenge overreactions. Say, “Making a mistake (or losing) doesn’t make you stupid or worthless. That’s an exaggeration that isn’t helpful.” Guide them to change approaches for better results as needed.
7. If they seek activity recognition with awards, lead parts, and officer positions, ask how your kids’ feel about these achievements (or lack of), what it costs them, and what they gain from them.
8. Regardless of achievement level, don’t be fooled by smiling faces—ask your kids about pressures they and other kids face today and how they cope. Be on the lookout for signs of struggle and talk often if they say they are just fine and don’t have any pressures or problems—it’s tough growing up in our broken world, especially with today’s unlimited media access.
9. Praise children for who they are and what they are doing to become good people more than their achievements. Praise them just for being yours, not for what they do (“I’m so lucky I have you in my life”). Praise effort, persistence, learning, and enjoyment more than achievements. Compliment when they admit and learn from mistakes, are kind, talk about feelings, share disappointments, show self-compassion (talk nicely to themselves and about themselves like they would to a friend), support other people’s desires ahead of their own, set goals and work toward them, and seem okay with not being perfect, but good enough.
10. Show them “good enough” acceptance of yourself. No one is perfect and that is perfectly OK. One doesn’t need to get what they want or be brilliant, excellent, or beautiful to be happy.

Achievements can lead to temporary pleasure, but perfectionists aren’t happy for long as they continue struggling to be best at most everything they try or for the next win. So we can also help by letting kids watch how we treat non-achievement-oriented things linked to lasting happiness as most valued in life, such as fulfilling relationships, doing things we love, having fun, working in healthy ways toward goals, being spiritual, taking care of ourselves, and helping others.