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If you’ve been around Charlotte Mason circles very long, you’ve probably heard the little phrase “perfect execution.” That was one of the habits she encouraged us to cultivate in our children, giving their best effort, doing something perfectly. But if you have a child who struggles with perfectionism, or if you struggle with perfectionism, that phrase might raise some anxiety. Let’s talk about how we can balance that out and what’s a good mindset for those who struggle with that issue. Joining me today is my friend and coworker, Katie Thacker.
Sonya: Katie, so good to have you back.
Katie: Yes, it’s great to be here.
Sonya: Now last time you were here, we talked about ADHD, and this time we want to talk about perfectionism. Are the two related?
Katie: They can be. There are a lot of students who have ADHD who also have a streak of perfectionism. But then there are a lot of kids who have perfectionism-type tendencies who don’t have ADHD, but they might still struggle with that. It might travel along with some anxieties or higher nerves or anything like that.
Sonya: Personality type.
Katie: Yes, and I think a lot of us, as homeschool moms, have this feeling of perfectionism that will come after us.
Sonya: We have a lot to prove, we think.
Katie: We get a lot of outside pressures. We also tend to be ambitious people; we were willing to take on God’s call and homeschool our kids, and we can find ourselves getting attacked by that feeling a lot.
Sonya: So let’s talk a little bit about that. Charlotte used the word perfect. And we toss that around sometimes in Charlotte Mason circles. Do you deal with perfectionism in your home?
Katie: Yes, so I sometimes find myself in that situation, and it’s not always; it’s not consistent for me, but I find myself there. And I’ve got a child who has had some struggles with that, and I’ve talked to many, many homeschool moms who have that situation in their homes.
Sonya: So how can you, who deal with this, find a balance, if you will, or how do you deal with this word perfect in Charlotte Mason’s habits? She’s encouraging us toward being perfect. Does that just raise your blood pressure?
Katie: A little bit, a little bit. One of the things that I actually was just thinking about last night, as we were getting ready for this today, is that in Charlotte’s time, there weren’t computers. So the idea of perfect, my guess is, would have been different. There wasn’t a perfect font to replicate for handwriting. There was not a perfect line or a perfect square very often without using many, many tools. Today we can just hop on a computer and get a perfect square immediately. And so we want to keep that in mind.
In Charlotte’s time, there weren’t computers. So the idea of perfect would have been different. There wasn’t a perfect font to replicate for handwriting. There was not a perfect line or a perfect square.
Sonya: Even in handcrafts, we get a lot of machine-made things where everything is cut exactly to specification. And it was all done by hand back then. You can create beautiful things, but not bang them out like this.
Katie: Right. It’s not going to have that high precision that we now have with machinery and computers. So even Charlotte’s choice of the word perfect might have meant something different to her. She did not call me up and tell me, but that’s my guess that perfect would have meant within the range of human effort; our best effort.
Sonya: That’s an interesting concept. And even outside academic issues, outside the subjects that we study, there is a façade of perfectionism in our society with all of the airbrushed pictures we see. All the beautiful things on Instagram that just look picture perfect; we use that term. And none of that would have been part of the society back then, for anyone to compare themselves to.
Katie: Right, exactly. All clothing was handmade and all of those things. So there’s going to be just a difference in perception there with what is perfect.
Sonya: That’s an interesting concept. All right. So, let’s talk a little bit about perfectionism in a home school and where it can lead to. Are there any problems with it? I mean, most of us have struggles with it, but what are those struggles that we experience?
Katie: What I have witnessed has been almost two paths that come out of it: You can have a student who is so involved in his or her perfectionism that it can lead to a burnout, and the burnout can look like laziness or a lack of effort because the child believes, “Well, if I can’t do it perfectly, why try?” There’s a certain amount of vulnerability that the child is avoiding. Then things will become sloppy, or the work doesn’t get done at all.
I have noticed that we do a lot of joking about perfectionism today. We say, “Oh, it’s a weakness of mine, I’m so perfectionistic.” But we’re almost worshiping it a little bit, we want to be a perfectionist, and we can turn it into a bit of an idol. It can be hard when we are having those troubles to release ourselves from that, because we want to be the perfectionist in our friend group or among our peers.
Sonya: It reminds me a little bit of what Charlotte said about humility, that humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. And it’s that idea of: It’s not “Am I doing this perfectly?” It’s “Don’t worry about yourself, think about others, think about the work at hand,” rather than “How do I appear? Do I appear perfect?” Does that relate at all?
Katie: It does. It’s important for us to realize why we’re doing what we’re doing. So yes, we should be doing our best effort, so that; what is our goal in that? When we’re doing a handwriting lesson or when we’re recording something in our book of mottos, what is the purpose in that? Is it to create something that’s museum quality that is going to look like it was typed even though we hand-wrote it? Or is the book of mottos going to serve the purpose of being a resource for us to look back on and to think through and capture those wonderful ideas that we’re interacting with? So understanding the purpose of what we’re doing can help us sometimes release a little bit.
Sonya: Also the motivation goes into that purpose as well. I’m seeing the two tie together a bit, that the museum quality—if that is the purpose of this—why is that the purpose? Is it so you will look good? Or is it so you will feel like you did it correctly? I’m not sure about the internal conversation going on there, but knowing what the purpose is can be very helpful.
Katie: A few years ago, at one of our retreats, we had a session about an artistic child. And I see it often that students who have an artistic bent have a really, really strong beauty sense. And so that beauty sense can lead to some perfectionism because of how much joy they get when something is truly beautiful. And that’s wonderful, but we don’t want it to paralyze us or to put us in a situation where a 5-minute handwriting lesson has now turned into an hour-long journey of…
Sonya: …tears and all of that. And you erase until you have a hole in your paper.
Katie: And then we don’t want to even keep the notebook because there are mistakes in it. So we can cause all of this stress that we don’t need. What I’ve found works well with my kids, as well as with other families, is to shift the goal a little bit. So now the goal, instead of being perfect, or using the word, perfect—and we can choose not to use that word in our home if it raises anxiety—is to really think about good judgment and teaching your kids to look at, “Okay, what is my goal? What does ‘best effort’ look like for me? And what are my time constraints? And what does that mean for when I am producing this written narration, or this exam response, or whatever it might be?” So the goal becomes: How well can you do with your judgment, given all the factors in a situation, rather than how perfect can your end product be?
Sonya: That is a great way to look at it, because even when we change perfect execution, that wording, to best effort, some people can get hung up on that word, best. It’s like, “Is this the absolute best I can ever do in my life?” Which is perfectionism, basically. So instead, bringing in those other factors you talked about, “Is this the best I can do in this time constraint?” giving it focused attention and with the other factors involved? Like, you know, “I broke my arm, so I’m writing with my left hand,” if you’re right-handed. Is this going to be perfect? No, we just have to take those factors into consideration. I love how you do that. Do you have those talks with the children ahead of time, sit down and have a big cheer session: “Instead of focusing on perfectionism, we’re going to focus on these things?” Or is that just something you naturally bring in along the process? How do you go about that?
Katie: I found with my kids that it does help to talk about it ahead of time and I’ve learned, through making mistakes, some of the things that I don’t want to be saying and some things to be saying instead. I have learned to eliminate from my home ever saying, “This should be easy for you.” Sometimes we can say that, thinking that it’s an encouragement, but what happens when it doesn’t click right away?
I have learned to eliminate from my home ever saying, “This should be easy for you.” Sometimes we can say that, thinking that it’s an encouragement, but what happens when it doesn’t click right away?
Sonya: Then, “I have failed immediately.”
Katie: Yes. And perfectionist children can often think there are only two outcomes to a task. It’s perfect, or it’s a failure. We do a lot of saying, “We’re going to try this out today, and we’re going to see how it goes, and then we’re going to take a look at this.” If it’s a new math concept, “Okay, today we’re going to start at it. We’re going to see how it goes, and then we’ll see what we need to do tomorrow to see if we need to revisit again or if we’re ready to practice,” or whatever it is, putting in those plans to discuss again. “Where are we at? What kind of progress did we make? What are our next steps? What do you feel comfortable with?” It’s all of those things. And I’m not trying to sandbag it, but I’m saying we can reflect, we can stay humble. We can reflect back about where we’re at and make decisions about what’s next. Where can I make progress or growth in that? We know that any one lesson on any one day can have an infinite number of outcomes. So it could be one day you do a math lesson and you have got it. And we could be tempted to encourage our child by saying, “You’re so good at math. You did a wonderful job with this.” Well, what happens when the next day it doesn’t click? And now we’ve told that child, “You’re so good at math.” And if that child struggles with perfectionism, it can be difficult.
Sonya: That is such a beautiful dovetail with Charlotte’s emphasis on growth, that that’s the goal of education, not attaining a certain level of perfectionism, if you will. But growth. And it’s reminding me, I’ve been using some exercise videos and I love the lady who leads these exercises, because she will say, “Give it your best effort, don’t slack off on me. Give it your best effort. But keep in mind that some days are going to be better than others.”
Katie: So our best effort is not always going to match. We have days where maybe we’re particularly tired or maybe we’ve loaded up our brain with something else. And it’s just not feeling the math or retaining all of that history detail or the handcraft. Our fingers aren’t working quite right today and it’s all fiddling.
Sonya: Because we’re human.
Katie: We all have different types of days. Our best effort can change. And in learning to recognize that, we can set that as a goal for our kids to know that it’s not going to be the same. We are not machines.
Sonya: How can you tell the difference, then, between a child who has a good, balanced approach to this, that “I’m going to give it my best effort today and take into consideration the other factors, and we’re just going to see what happens,” as you said, versus a child who’s slacking off?
Katie: And that does happen.
Sonya: How can you tell the difference?
Katie: We have kids who are going to slack off, and we will also have situations with kids who maybe normally give wonderful effort, but they are going to have days where the effort’s not there.
Sonya: That’s true.
Katie: One of the beauties of homeschooling is that we do get to know our kids so well. Our momma sense will… if we pray about it, and we listen, and we watch our kids, we can tell most of the time. We can start asking them questions, “What’s going on today? This doesn’t feel like you’re giving your best,” and see if we can get some communication from our kids.
Sonya: I like how you worded that; it’s not an accusation and an attack. “What happened to this? This is not your best work.” It’s “What’s going on? Where’s your head?” Or “What are you thinking? What are you feeling today? Let’s talk about it and work through it together.” Okay, so let me flip that around then. What do you do when a child is doing his best, is trying his best, but is still not able to measure up to what he wants? What if he gets so frustrated he’s about to go over the cliff? How do you deal with that?
Katie: That’s where I think the brain breaks are so wonderful, and we can even take flexibility in even what we’re studying. So, let’s say you’re working through algebra, and algebra is causing a lot of stress. There are other topics in math; we could do some business math for a little while. We could do some geometry for a little while. Sometimes that’s different. We can change it out, and we can tell our children, “You are still making progress, just in a different lane for right now.”
Sonya: So when you say take a break, you don’t mean just that day. It’s not “Take a 10-minute break,” it’s “Set that course aside for a few days, or a few weeks even, and work on a different lane in that same area,” if you will.
Katie: Yes. And we’ve done that at my house. We’ve said, “Okay, we tried that. I tried that and we’re going to set that aside for a little while. We’re going to come back to it.” But in the meantime, we’re going to continue to make progress. Maybe that Bible study was a little bit too much at this time so we’re going to do something else with the Bible for a while to grow there. But that book is still going to be there on our shelf when we’re ready to come back.
Sonya: That’s great. All right. So you mentioned something earlier today that really struck a chord about frustration. Something you saw overnight.
Katie: It was just this morning, I think, or maybe last night. Somebody was talking about, in the arts specifically, but I think this applies to a wide range, that when we feel frustration, we can translate that into our mind and our heart is telling us, “You need another tool. Your toolbox needs something else,” whether that’s assistance from a parent, a different book, a different day. We just need another tool to help us do whatever it is that our goal is. And that felt like it fit really well with this idea of perfectionism; we don’t have to count only on our own abilities where we’re at right now. There are so many things out there to help us learn, help us practice; people who can help us with feedback and guidance.
Sonya: That is a great way to look at it. I love that. So, when the child’s feeling frustration, when he’s first getting started with this concept, we can come at it from that angle of, “Oh, okay, that feeling means: What other tool do we need in order to have some success here, have some growth here?”
Katie: And the child may not know, and we may not know. It could be, “Look, we need another tool here. I don’t know what it is yet. We’re going to take a break from this while I ask around, while I think about it, while I pray about it, and once another tool comes to us, then we’ll head back.” We are tempted to be like, “What do you need?”
Sonya: Right now, because we’ve got to get this done so I can check it off the list.
Katie: And we love our lists.
Sonya: We do. And “If I don’t check everything off, I haven’t been a perfect homeschool mom today.” So the mirror, you know, is going to show.
Katie: Yes, we do tend to have multiple perfectionists in one home. And then we usually have one family member who’s like, “It’s all fine.”
Sonya: Yes, yes, help balance it out.
Katie: So we don’t want to put too much pressure on our kids to know what it is that they need right away. We can say, “I’m going to take a look at this. We’re going to figure this out. We’re going to ask around. I’m going to ask this other family at church who’s done this. I’m going to ask my friend who knows more about this curriculum. I’m going to contact the curriculum company and ask for help. We’re going to go outside of our living room and we’re going to go see what assistance might be there to help us get through whatever it is that’s going on.”
Sonya: And as you use that terminology and model that in front of your child, actually carrying through on that idea, that child’s going to be learning so much because you’re creating an atmosphere.
Katie: And it is so good for us too, as moms, to know that we can go out and get help for different things.
Sonya: Yeah, for ourselves and for our kids. And pretty soon, as they get more experience and get older, that whole process is going to become part of who they are. When they feel that frustration, that means let’s look around and see, “What else can be used here, what other tool can help me?”
Katie: And what a gift, as they get older, to learn to be resourceful that way.
Sonya: Yes. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Katie.
Katie: Thank you.
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