Parenting and Perfectionism

Hyper-critical parents raise perfectionistic children. Dr. Simon Sherry and his research team recently published a meta-analysis of 46 studies and 13,364 participants that showed hyper-critical, demanding and controlling parents raise self-critical, demanding and perfectionistic children who feel other people are disappointed in them.
 
A family environment characterized by parental criticism, demands and control is an incubator for perfectionism and illness in children. In fact, pressuring children to be perfect often backfires, with children being more likely to experience problems at school (procrastination, test-taking anxiety, fear of failure and public speaking anxiety) and mental health problems (anxiety, depression, panic attacks and eating disorders).
 
Forbes.ca
 

 
Therapytips.org
 

 
Psychology Today
 

 
Forbes