The Downside of Perfectionism: Perfectionist Parents and Their Gifted Children

Lest my previous posting, In Praise of Gifted Perfectionism, left some of you with the impression that perfectionism is a one-dimensional, always positive force in the lives of gifted children, let me set that straight. Perfectionism can make life more challenging for gifted children, but when the child has to deal with the pressures of a perfectionist parent, that challenge can be debilitating and hurt this important parent/child relationship.

As I mentioned in the posting In Praise of Gifted Perfectionism, a gifted child might have to deal with both intrinsic perfectionism (an organic or self-sustaining need) or extrinsic perfectionism (pressure from outside the child – created by parents, educators, culture, peers, etc.). I’d like to focus on the extrinsic perfectionism sometimes put on gifted children by a perfectionistic parent. I remember a particular instance in which a 5th grade boy’s parents came in to see me about his progress in my math class. “Tony” was a gifted boy who reminded me a lot of my brother who had committed suicide the previous year. Both of them were bright, sensitive, and intense, and both were athletes. Like my brother, Tony loved baseball.

His father was concerned that Tony didn’t have a strong enough work ethic. He wasn’t interested in “extra credit” assignments, and his work showed careless errors. He brought in one of Tony’s math tests on which he had scored an 89 percent. As Tony, his parents, and I sat around the table, his dad pointed out all the little mistakes Tony had made on the test. I tried to show Tony’s dad that Tony demonstrated a strong understanding of difficult concepts and that the little errors he had made were common for gifted kids.

I could see that this already sensitive and intense young man was feeling uncomfortable with the conversation, so asked him to go play on the playground while I talked with his parents. I have never been one to challenge parents in front of their child, but I knew that Tony needed me to step in as his advocate. Still hurting from the suicide of my brother, I told Tony’s father that Tony needed to develop a positive identity more than he needed 100% test scores. If Tony continued to see his worth as being measured by his father’s own perfection, he would have a hard time developing a positive identity and a willingness to take on more difficult challenges. Tony’s family moved to another state, and I received an email the following year telling me about Tony’s academic progress. I was actually hoping to hear about his dad’s progress in reining in his own perfectionism.

If there is any suggestion I can give parents of gifted children, I would say to make sure you don’t foist your own perfectionism on your children. Your children deserve to grow into their own perfectionism, their own passions, their own strengths. There is a fine line between guiding our child’s development and controlling it. If you find that your “guidance” is being rejected by your child, if you find your “guidance” is creating greater sensitivity and intensity in your child, counseling for the PARENT of a gifted child is always a good place to receive objective advice.

For more information on perfectionism and gifted children, see the Hoagies Gifted Education Page on perfectionism.

Self-Advocacy as a Necessary Skill for the Gifted Child

“Don’t be so quick to save your child,” I told an audience of parents looking for answers about how to parent a gifted child. After 25 years as a public school teacher and six years as a university professor, I am currently the Lane Werner Professor for Gifted Education at Pacific University’s Eugene campus. Thanks to a generous donation from a family who spent years struggling to find answers about how to parent their own gifted children, and thanks to the support by Pacific University’s College of Education, I am able to provide free workshops and individual consultations for parents of gifted children.

“Don’t be so quick to save your child,” is a mantra I stress with parents of gifted children. I tell them the story of going to the parent conference of our then 6th grade daughter. As we moved from table to table in the gymnasium full of teachers and parents, meeting with her math teacher, her block teacher, and her Spanish immersion teacher, we were greeted with glowing comments about our daughter’s attitude and grades. Moving somewhat smugly to her French teacher’s table, we were met with the comment, “Your daughter has all A’s on her tests, but she hasn’t been doing the homework in her workbook.” We thanked her teacher for the information and drove home.

I was disappointed with her teacher for not understanding that kids who have obviously mastered the subject matter shouldn’t have to do needless busywork for homework, and I was also disappointed that our daughter wasn’t doing the required assignments. We told her that school was her job and that she couldn’t decide which assignments to do and which to ignore. We told her that she had to do the work or negotiate with her teacher about an alternative assignment. I had read George Betts and Maureen Neihart’s work on “autonomous learners” in the NAGC’s Gifted Child Quarterly(1988), and I knew it was important for us to teach our daughter the following attributes of an autonomous learner: working independently, developing her own goals, following through on assignments and commitments, and standing up for her convictions in a socially-responsible way. I was concerned that if we played the “blame the teacher” game, we wouldn’t be teaching her the more important skill of how to advocate for herself. In addition, we asked our daughter to show us her homework assignment sheet each evening so we could see what assignments she had been given and when they were due. One of the most positive aspects of checking her assignment sheet was the discussions we were able to have about what she was learning in school. Although Betts and Neihart stress that you rarely see an autonomous learner in the early grades, parents and teachers should be modeling and encouraging those behaviors from a young age.

Our daughter, who is now a junior associate in a law firm, says that our insistence on her becoming an autonomous learner helped pave the way for her self-sufficiency as a high school and college student, as well as her success as a lawyer.

Don’t be too quick to save your child. Your best intentions may prevent your child from becoming an autonomous learner and an independent and self-sufficient young adult.

For more information about Pacific University’s Center for Gifted Education, see the Spring 2007 article in Pacific Magazine called “The Forgotten Child.”

Interested in Gifted Education? Be Inspired by Stephanie Tolan!

When asked by my university students (or by parents of gifted children) to explain the difference between gifted and bright children, there are many resources I could point them to on the internet. I would say, however, that if you are interested in knowing more about this topic, you will find the ideas of Stephanie Tolan to be inspiring. Tolan, an author, is passionate about exceptionally gifted children. Each fall, I have the students in my Social and Psychological Foundations of Gifted Education read Tolan’s piece,”Is It a Cheetah?”

Returning to the question of the differences between gifted and bright children, I believe Tolan has a strong case set forth in her piece “Giftedness as Asynchronous Development.” Rather than focusing on what the child has achieved, what grades have been earned and awards won, we need to look at the internal world of the gifted child, including an amplified way of being.

For those of you who are gifted, or who live with a gifted child, finding a counselor who understands this amplified way of being as an organic part of giftedness is important. See Andrew Mahoney and Paula Prober for more information on counseling the gifted.