Parenting a perfectionist? Here’s how you can respond
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Some children show signs of perfectionism from early on. Young children might become frustrated and rip up their drawing if it’s not quite right. Older children might avoid or refuse to do homework because they’re afraid to make a mistake.
Perfectionism can lead to children feeling overwhelmed, angry and frustrated, or sad and withdrawn.
And yet perfectionism isn’t considered all bad in our society. Being called a “perfectionist” can be a compliment – code for being a great worker or student, someone who strives to do their best and makes sure all jobs are done well.
These seemingly polarised views reflect the complex nature of perfectionism.
What is perfectionism?
Researchers often separate perfectionism into two parts:
- perfectionistic strivings: being determined to meet goals and achieve highly
- perfectionistic concerns: worry about being able to meet high standards, and self-criticism about performance.
While perfectionistic strivings can be positive and lead to high achievement, perfectionistic concerns can lead to a higher chance of children developing eating disorders or anxiety and depression, and having lower academic achievement.
Children and adolescents may experience perfectionism in relation to school work, sport, performance in art or music, or in relation to their own body.
Signs of perfectionistic concerns in children and adolescents may include:
- children being highly critical of themselves
- their reactions to mistakes seeming to be an overreaction
- intense preoccupation and worry over their standards and goals and/or procrastination
- significant change in performance, for example, lower academic results
- irritability and negative emotions, stress and feelings of worthlessness
- social problems with peers and friends, such as bullying and alienating themselves from peers.
A range of genetic, biological and environmental factors influence perfectionism in children. And as a parent, our role is important. While research evidence suggests we can’t successfully increase positive perfectionistic strivings in our children, harsh or controlling parenting can increase negative perfectionistic concerns in children.
Parents who are perfectionistic themselves can also model this to their children.
So, how can we walk the line between supporting our child’s interests and helping them to achieve their potential, without pressuring them and increasing the risk of negative outcomes?
Give them space to grow
A great metaphor is the gardener versus the carpenter described by psychology professor Alison Gopnik.
Instead of trying to build and shape our children by controlling them and their environment (like a carpenter), parents can embrace the spirit of the gardener – providing lots of space for children to grow in their own direction, and nourishing them with love, respect and trust.
We can’t control who they become, so it’s better to sit back, enjoy the ride, and look forward to watching the person they grow into.
However, there is still plenty we can do as parents if our child is showing signs of perfectionism. We can role model to our children how to set realistic goals and be flexible when things change or go wrong, help our children manage stress and negative emotions, and create healthy balance in our family daily routine.
Set realistic goals
People with perfectionistic tendencies will often set unattainable goals. We can support the development of flexibility and realistic goal setting by asking curious questions, for example, “what would you need to do to get one small step closer to this goal?” Identifying upper and lower limits for goals is also helpful.
If your child is fixed on a high score at school, for example, set that as the “upper limit” and then support them to identify a “lower limit” they would find acceptable, even if they are less happy with the outcome.
This strategy may take time and practice to widen the gap between the two, but is useful to create flexibility over time.
If a goal is performance-based and the outcome cannot be guaranteed (for example, a sporting competition), encourage your child to set a personal goal they have more control over.
We can also have conversations about perfectionism from early on, and explain that everyone makes mistakes. In fact, it’s great to model this to our children – talking about our own mistakes and feelings, to show them that we ourselves are not perfect.
Talk aloud practices can help children to see that we “walk the walk”. For example, if you burn dinner you could reflect:
I’m disappointed because I put time and effort into that and it didn’t turn out as I expected. But we all make mistakes. I don’t get things right every time.
Manage stress and negative emotions
Some children and adolescents have a natural tendency towards perfectionism. Rather than trying to control their behaviour, we can provide gentle, loving support.
When our child or adolescent becomes frustrated, angry, sad or overwhelmed, we support them best by helping them to name, express and validate all of their emotions.
Parents may fear that acknowledging their child’s negative emotions will make the emotions worse, but the opposite is true.
Creating healthy balance
The building blocks of healthy child development are strong loving family relationships, good nutrition, creative play and plenty of physical activity, sleep and rest.
Perfectionism is associated with rigidity, and thinking that there is only one correct way to succeed. We can instead encourage flexibility and creativity in children.
Children’s brains grow through play. There is strong research evidence showing that creative, child-led play is associated with higher emotion regulation skills, and a range of cognitive skills, including problem-solving, memory, planning, flexibility and decision-making.
Play isn’t just for young children either – there’s evidence that explorative, creative play of any kind also benefits adolescents and adults.
There is also evidence that getting active outdoors in nature can promote children’s coping skills, emotion regulation and cognitive development.
Elizabeth Westrupp, Associate Professor in Psychology, Deakin University; Gabriella King, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University, and Jade Sheen, Associate Professor, School of Psychology, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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F*ck You Chaos – by Dominika Choroszko
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We’ve all read decluttering books. Some may even have decluttering books cluttering bookshelves. This one’s a little different, though:
Dominika Choroszko looks at assessing, decluttering, and subsequently organizing:
- Your home
- Your mind
- Your finances
In other words
- she starts off like Marie Kondo, and…
- phases through doing the jobs of Queer Eye’s “Fab Five”, before…
- sitting us down with some CBT worksheets, and…
- finally going through finances à la Martin Lewis.
By the time we’ve read the book, it’s as though Mary Poppins has breezed through our house, head, and bank account, leaving everything “practically perfect in every way”.
Of course, it’s on us to actually do the work, but as many of us struggle with “how” and the ever-dreaded “but where to begin”, Choroszko’s whirlwind impetus and precision guidance (many very direct practical steps to take) really grease the wheels of progress.
In short, this could be the book that kickstarts your next big “getting everything into better order” drive, with a clear step-by-step this-then-this-then-this linear process.
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Keep Inflammation At Bay
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How to Prevent (or Reduce) Inflammation
You asked us to do a main feature on inflammation, so here we go!
Before we start, it’s worth noting an important difference between acute and chronic inflammation:
- Acute inflammation is generally when the body detects some invader, and goes to war against it. This (except in cases such as allergic responses) is usually helpful.
- Chronic inflammation is generally when the body does a civil war. This is almost never helpful.
We’ll be tackling the latter, which frees up your body’s resources to do better at the former.
First, the obvious…
These five things are as important for this as they are for most things:
- Get a good diet—the Mediterranean diet is once again a top-scorer
- Exercise—move and stretch your body; don’t overdo it, but do what you reasonably can, or the inflammation will get worse.
- Reduce (or ideally eliminate) alcohol consumption. When in pain, it’s easy to turn to the bottle, and say “isn’t this one of red wine’s benefits?” (it isn’t, functionally*). Alcohol will cause your inflammation to flare up like little else.
- Don’t smoke—it’s bad for everything, and that goes for inflammation too.
- Get good sleep. Obviously this can be difficult with chronic pain, but do take your sleep seriously. For example, invest in a good mattress, nice bedding, a good bedtime routine, etc.
*Resveratrol (which is a polyphenol, by the way), famously found in red wine, does have anti-inflammatory properties. However, to get enough resveratrol to be of benefit would require drinking far more wine than will be good for your inflammation or, indeed, the rest of you. So if you’d like resveratrol benefits, consider taking it as a supplement. Superficially it doesn’t seem as much fun as drinking red wine, but we assure you that the results will be much more fun than the inflammation flare-up after drinking.
About the Mediterranean Diet for this…
There are many causes of chronic inflammation, but here are some studies done with some of the most common ones:
- Beneficial effect of Mediterranean diet in systemic lupus erythematosus patients
- How the Mediterranean diet and some of its components modulate inflammatory pathways in arthritis
- The effects of the Mediterranean diet on biomarkers of vascular wall inflammation and plaque vulnerability in subjects with high risk for cardiovascular disease
- Adherence to Mediterranean diet and 10-year incidence of diabetes: correlations with inflammatory and oxidative stress biomarkers*
*Type 1 diabetes is a congenital autoimmune disorder, as the pancreas goes to war with itself. Type 2 diabetes is different, being a) acquired and b) primarily about insulin resistance, and/but this is related to chronic inflammation regardless. It is also possible to have T1D and go on to develop insulin resistance, and that’s very bad, and/but beyond the scope of today’s newsletter, in which we are focusing on the inflammation aspects.
Some specific foods to eat or avoid…
Eat these:
- Leafy greens
- Cruciferous vegetables
- Tomatoes
- Fruits in general (berries in particular)
- Healthy fats, e.g. olives and olive oil
- Almonds and other nuts
- Dark chocolate (choose high cocoa, low sugar)
Avoid these:
- Processed meats (absolute worst offenders are hot dogs, followed by sausages in general)
- Red meats
- Sugar (includes most fruit juices, but not most actual fruits—the difference with actual fruits is they still contain plenty of fiber, and in many cases, antioxidants/polyphenols that reduce inflammation)
- Dairy products (unless fermented, in which case it seems to be at worst neutral, sometimes even a benefit, in moderation)
- White flour (and white flour products, e.g. white bread, white pasta, etc)
- Processed vegetable oils
See also: 9 Best Drinks To Reduce Inflammation, Says Science
Supplements?
Some supplements that have been found to reduce inflammation include:
(links are to studies showing their efficacy)
Consider Intermittent Fasting
Remember when we talked about the difference between acute and chronic inflammation? It’s fair to wonder “if I reduce my inflammatory response, will I be weakening my immune system?”, and the answer is: generally, no.
Often, as with the above supplements and dietary considerations, reducing inflammation actually results in a better immune response when it’s actually needed! This is because your immune system works better when it hasn’t been working in overdrive constantly.
Here’s another good example: intermittent fasting reduces the number of circulating monocytes (a way of measuring inflammation) in healthy humans—but doesn‘t compromise antimicrobial (e.g. against bacteria and viruses) immune response.
See for yourself: Dietary Intake Regulates the Circulating Inflammatory Monocyte Pool ← the study is about the anti-inflammatory effects of fasting
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Natto, Taurine + Black Pepper, And Other Game-Changers
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝Loved the info on nuts; of course I always eat pecans, which didn’t make the list of healthy nuts!❞
Dear subscriber, pardon the paraphrase of your comment—somehow it got deleted and now exists only in this writer’s memory. However, to address it:
Pecans are great too! We can’t include everything in every article (indeed, we got another feedback the same day saying the article was too long), but we love when you come to us with stuff for us to look at and write about (seriously, writer here: the more you ask, the easier it makes my job), so let’s talk pecans for a moment:
Pecans would have been number six on our list if we’d have written more!
Like many nuts, they’ve an abundance of healthy fats, fiber, vitamins, and minerals.
They’re particularly good for zinc, which is vital for immune function, healing (including normal recovery after normal exercise), and DNA synthesis (so: anti-aging).
Pecans are also great for reducing LDL (“bad” cholesterol) and triglycerides (which are also bad for heart health); check it out:
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Garden Cress vs Watercress – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing garden cress to watercress, we picked the garden cress.
Why?
While watercress is (rightly!) popularly viewed as a superfood for its nutritional density, the garden variety actually outperforms it.
In terms of macros first, garden cress has more protein, carbs, and fiber, while also having the lower glycemic index. Not that anyone’s getting blood sugar spikes from eating any kind of cress, but still, by the numbers, this is a clear win on the whole for garden cress in the category of macros.
When it comes to vitamins, garden cress has a lot (tens of times) more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B6, B7, B9, C, K, and choline, while watercress has (slightly) more of vitamins B1, B5, and E. An easy win for garden cress.
In the category of minerals, garden cress has more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium, while watercress has more calcium. Another clear win for garden cress.
Taking a quick peep at polyphenols in case there’s anything to offset the above, garden cress has 13x more kaempferol (13mg/100g to watercress’s 1mg/100g), and/but watercress, in its favor, has quercetin (at 4mg/100g), which garden cress doesn’t. So, we say this category is also a win for garden cress, but watercress has its merits too.
👆 Let’s clarify: those numbers are all very good, and garden cress’s 13mg/100g kaempferol is absurdly high; most such quotients of most edible plants are orders of magnitude smaller; not to shoehorn in another vegetable, but just to give an example, savoy cabbage, which won on nutritional density vs bok choi recently, has 0.26mg/100g kaempferol and 0.12mg/100g quercetin (which were already very respectable numbers), so you see the difference in cress’s exceptionally generous delivery of these polyphenols!
Adding up the sections makes for an overwhelming win for garden cress!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Sprout Your Seeds, Grains, Beans, Etc ← cress is a great example of this!
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Cashew & Chickpea Balti
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When it comes to curries, the humble balti is perhaps the best when you don’t have all day to let something simmer. Filled with healthful spices, this one also comes complete with lots of fiber as well as healthy proteins and fats, with most of its calories coming from the nuts themselves, and the haricot paste base makes for a deliciously creamy curry without having to add anything unhealthy.
You will need
- 1 cup cashews, soaked in warm water for at least 5 minutes, and drained (if allergic, omit)
- 1 can chickpeas (keep the water)
- 1 can haricot beans (keep the water)
- 1 can crushed tomatoes
- 2 medium (or 3 small) red onions, sliced
- red or green chilis, quantity per your preference re heat, chopped
- ½ bulb garlic, crushed
- ½ oz fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp garam masala
- 1 tbsp ground coriander
- 1 tbsp black pepper, coarse ground
- 2 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp mustard seeds (if allergic, omit)
- 1 tsp sweet cinnamon
- 1 tsp coriander seeds
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
- Avocado oil, for frying (extra virgin olive-oil, or cold-pressed coconut oil, are fine alternatives)
- Garnish: handful fresh cilantro, chopped (or parsley, if you have the “cilantro tastes like soap” gene)
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Heat a little oil in a large sauté pan (we’re going to need space to work; a large wok is traditional but a sauté pan is convenient), and add the garlic, ginger, mustard seeds, and coriander seeds, stirring for about 2 minutes, then add the onions and chilis, stirring for another 3 minutes. The onions and chilis won’t be fully cooked yet, but that’s fine, we just needed to get them started.
2) Add the crushed tomatoes, stirring them in, and when they get to temperature, turn the heat down to a simmer.
3) Add the chickpeas to the pan, but separately put the chickpea water into a high-speed blender.
4) Add the haricot beans, including the water they came in, to the high-speed blender, as well as the tomato paste and the remaining spices (including the MSG or salt), and blend on high until smooth. Add the curry paste (that’s what you’ve just made in the blender) to the pan, and stir in well.
5) Add the cashews, stirring in well. Taste, and adjust any spices if necessary for your liking. If the onions still aren’t fully cooked, let them simmer until they are, but it shouldn’t take long.
10almonds tip: if perchance you made it too spicy, you can add a little lime juice and the acidity will counteract the heat. Adding lemon juice, lime juice, or some kind of vinegar (depending on what works with the flavor profile of your recipe) is a good last resort to have up your sleeve for fixing a dish that got too spicy.
6) Add the garnish, and serve—we recommend serving it with our Tasty Versatile Rice, but any carb is fine.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!
- Three Daily Servings of Beans?
- Cashew Nuts vs Coconut – Which is Healthier?
- What Matters Most For Your Heart?
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits? ← we hit 5/5 again today!
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What are the most common symptoms of menopause? And which can hormone therapy treat?
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Despite decades of research, navigating menopause seems to have become harder – with conflicting information on the internet, in the media, and from health care providers and researchers.
Adding to the uncertainty, a recent series in the Lancet medical journal challenged some beliefs about the symptoms of menopause and which ones menopausal hormone therapy (also known as hormone replacement therapy) can realistically alleviate.
So what symptoms reliably indicate the start of perimenopause or menopause? And which symptoms can menopause hormone therapy help with? Here’s what the evidence says.
Remind me, what exactly is menopause?
Menopause, simply put, is complete loss of female fertility.
Menopause is traditionally defined as the final menstrual period of a woman (or person female at birth) who previously menstruated. Menopause is diagnosed after 12 months of no further bleeding (unless you’ve had your ovaries removed, which is surgically induced menopause).
Perimenopause starts when menstrual cycles first vary in length by seven or more days, and ends when there has been no bleeding for 12 months.
Both perimenopause and menopause are hard to identify if a person has had a hysterectomy but their ovaries remain, or if natural menstruation is suppressed by a treatment (such as hormonal contraception) or a health condition (such as an eating disorder).
What are the most common symptoms of menopause?
Our study of the highest quality menopause-care guidelines found the internationally recognised symptoms of the perimenopause and menopause are:
- hot flushes and night sweats (known as vasomotor symptoms)
- disturbed sleep
- musculoskeletal pain
- decreased sexual function or desire
- vaginal dryness and irritation
- mood disturbance (low mood, mood changes or depressive symptoms) but not clinical depression.
However, none of these symptoms are menopause-specific, meaning they could have other causes.
In our study of Australian women, 38% of pre-menopausal women, 67% of perimenopausal women and 74% of post-menopausal women aged under 55 experienced hot flushes and/or night sweats.
But the severity of these symptoms varies greatly. Only 2.8% of pre-menopausal women reported moderate to severely bothersome hot flushes and night sweats symptoms, compared with 17.1% of perimenopausal women and 28.5% of post-menopausal women aged under 55.
So bothersome hot flushes and night sweats appear a reliable indicator of perimenopause and menopause – but they’re not the only symptoms. Nor are hot flushes and night sweats a western society phenomenon, as has been suggested. Women in Asian countries are similarly affected.
You don’t need to have night sweats or hot flushes to be menopausal.
Maridav/ShutterstockDepressive symptoms and anxiety are also often linked to menopause but they’re less menopause-specific than hot flushes and night sweats, as they’re common across the entire adult life span.
The most robust guidelines do not stipulate women must have hot flushes or night sweats to be considered as having perimenopausal or post-menopausal symptoms. They acknowledge that new mood disturbances may be a primary manifestation of menopausal hormonal changes.
The extent to which menopausal hormone changes impact memory, concentration and problem solving (frequently talked about as “brain fog”) is uncertain. Some studies suggest perimenopause may impair verbal memory and resolve as women transition through menopause. But strategic thinking and planning (executive brain function) have not been shown to change.
Who might benefit from hormone therapy?
The Lancet papers suggest menopause hormone therapy alleviates hot flushes and night sweats, but the likelihood of it improving sleep, mood or “brain fog” is limited to those bothered by vasomotor symptoms (hot flushes and night sweats).
In contrast, the highest quality clinical guidelines consistently identify both vasomotor symptoms and mood disturbances associated with menopause as reasons for menopause hormone therapy. In other words, you don’t need to have hot flushes or night sweats to be prescribed menopause hormone therapy.
Often, menopause hormone therapy is prescribed alongside a topical vaginal oestrogen to treat vaginal symptoms (dryness, irritation or urinary frequency).
You don’t need to experience hot flushes and night sweats to take hormone therapy.
Monkey Business Images/ShutterstockHowever, none of these guidelines recommend menopause hormone therapy for cognitive symptoms often talked about as “brain fog”.
Despite musculoskeletal pain being the most common menopausal symptom in some populations, the effectiveness of menopause hormone therapy for this specific symptoms still needs to be studied.
Some guidelines, such as an Australian endorsed guideline, support menopause hormone therapy for the prevention of osteoporosis and fracture, but not for the prevention of any other disease.
What are the risks?
The greatest concerns about menopause hormone therapy have been about breast cancer and an increased risk of a deep vein clot which might cause a lung clot.
Oestrogen-only menopause hormone therapy is consistently considered to cause little or no change in breast cancer risk.
Oestrogen taken with a progestogen, which is required for women who have not had a hysterectomy, has been associated with a small increase in the risk of breast cancer, although any risk appears to vary according to the type of therapy used, the dose and duration of use.
Oestrogen taken orally has also been associated with an increased risk of a deep vein clot, although the risk varies according to the formulation used. This risk is avoided by using estrogen patches or gels prescribed at standard doses
What if I don’t want hormone therapy?
If you can’t or don’t want to take menopause hormone therapy, there are also effective non-hormonal prescription therapies available for troublesome hot flushes and night sweats.
In Australia, most of these options are “off-label”, although the new medication fezolinetant has just been approved in Australia for postmenopausal hot flushes and night sweats, and is expected to be available by mid-year. Fezolinetant, taken as a tablet, acts in the brain to stop the chemical neurokinin 3 triggering an inappropriate body heat response (flush and/or sweat).
Unfortunately, most over-the-counter treatments promoted for menopause are either ineffective or unproven. However, cognitive behaviour therapy and hypnosis may provide symptom relief.
The Australasian Menopause Society has useful menopause fact sheets and a find-a-doctor page. The Practitioner Toolkit for Managing Menopause is also freely available.
Susan Davis, Chair of Women’s Health, Monash University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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