Rattibha

Perfectionism parenting makes us fear criticism, fear making mistakes, and has us believing we are a fraud.
Here's why:

Your parents loved loved you, and you knew that. Your home was stable in many ways: no toxic fights and no verbal abuse. In fact, to outsiders your family might have appeared perfect. Or, at least to have it all together.

But, underneath appearances, you felt the weight of expectations even as a child. Your parents were perfectionists. And they had extremely high expectations of you. So high, you focused all of your attention on trying to meet those expectations.

Of course, your parents meant well. They pushed you and were hard on you because they thought this was a way to get you to reach your full potential. They didn't really understand emotional needs, and loved you in the only way they knew how.

Perfectionistic Homes Are Usually:
- calm, quiet, and seemingly functional
- highly critical
- lack of emotional intelligence and awareness: focus on productivity, achievement, and intellect
- extreme over-seriousness
- lack of joy or spontaneous play.

I've worked with many adults from perfectionistic homes and hear things like:
- “I could never do anything right”
- “my parents never told me anything good about myself, they only pointed out my mistakes”
“I have a feeling I’m a failure and don’t know why"

- “my parents didn’t let me be a kid. All activities were geared around achievement in some way”
- “I have this feeling I’m a failure or a fraud and I don’t know why”
- "I was such an easy child who was mature for my age."

Adults from perfectionistic homes have been conditioned to look for external validation over connection to their intuition. Because their parents were critical or cold, they also tend to be people pleasers.

They have beliefs like:
- if anyone sees the real me, they won't love me
- parts of me are unloveable
- people's approval is more important than meeting my own needs
- play, leisure, or rest is for lazy people.

The first step in healing is realizing perfectionism is an illusion. None of us are perfect. And (contrary to how we've been conditioned) mistakes are how we grow and evolve.

How To Begin Your Healing Journey:
1. Get to know your inner child: Perfectionistic parents tend to be rigid, overprotective, controlling or demanding. Get to know the spontaneous, silly, playful inner child within yourself.

2. Stop planning every moment: perfectionistic parents plan every moment of their children’s lives. I’ve heard stories about having such a packed schedule with sports and activities, there was never a moment to just be. Plan unscheduled time just for you.

3. Do something new and let it not be perfect: get a coloring book and color outside of the lines, buy a new book and read out of order, play a new instrument and fumble through it. Start becoming uncomfortable with being outside of your comfort zone.

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