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Perfectionism can lead to children feeling overwhelmed, angry and frustrated, or sad and withdrawn.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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Seniors: Improve Blood Flow & Circulation In Your Legs
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Dr. Doug Weiss, a physiotherapist (and thus: a doctor of physical therapy), has advice on how and why to increase blood flow and circulation in your legs, keeping yourself healthier for longer and avoiding a lot of potential unpleasantries.
The exercises
The exercises here are not complex; they are as follows, and he suggests 3 sets of 10 reps of each, daily:
- Sitting ankle pumps: sitting on a chair or the edge of a bed, lift the toes up, then heels up, squeezing the muscles.
- Sitting knee extensions: sitting as before, kick one leg up until knee is straight, then switch legs.
- Heel raises: standing this time, with a sturdy support such as a countertop, raise on toes as high as possible, then lower heels back to the ground
- Pillow squats: placing pillows on a chair, cross hands on chest, and simply stand up and sit down—similar to the “getting up off the floor without using your hands” exercise, but an easier version.
For visuals on these, and more details including the specific benefits of each, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
4 Tips To Stand Without Using Hands ← this time it’s the full movement, from the floor, and this is a really important movement to be able to do, as it’s a big indicator of healthy longevity
Take care!
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Shoulders Range – by Elia Bartolini
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Shoulder flexibility and mobility can be a big deal, especially when it starts to decline—more so than other kinds of flexibility. Most seniors can get through the day without doing the splits against a wall, for example, but shoulder tightness can be more of a problem if you can’t easily get into or out of your clothes.
If you think it couldn’t happen to you: the great Jane Fonda has a now-famous photoset of her looking glamorous in a dress at a red carpet event, and then looking frazzled making breakfast in the same dress in her kitchen the next morning, because, as she wrote, “I couldn’t get my dress unzipped so I slept in it”.
Now, “to avoid ending up like Jane Fonda” is not a series of words that usually precedes advice, but in this case: this book delves into the science of one of the most quirky joints of the human body, and how to leverage this to maximize shoulder mobility, while maintaining adequate strength (because flexibility without strength is just asking for a dislocation) without doing anything that would actually bulk up our shoulders, because it’s just about progressing through passive, active, and tensed stretching, static, dynamic, and loaded stretching, as well as PNF stretching and antagonist stretching.
If that seems like a lot of stretching, don’t worry; the author presents a series of workouts that will take us through these stretches in a very small amount of time each day.
The style is instructional like a textbook, with clear diagrams where appropriate, and lots of callout boxes, bullet points, emboldening for key points, etc. It all makes for every easy learning.
Bottom line: if you’d like to improve and maintain your shoulder mobility, this is an excellent book for that.
Click here to check out Shoulders Range, and perfect your shoulders and upper body flexibility!
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Non-Sleep Deep Rest: A Neurobiologist’s Take
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How to get many benefits of sleep, while awake!
Today we’re talking about Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist and professor in the department of neurobiology at Stanford School of Medicine.
He’s also a popular podcaster, and as his Wikipedia page notes:
❝In episodes lasting several hours, Huberman talks about the state of research in a specific topic, both within and outside his specialty❞
Today, we won’t be taking hours, and we will be taking notes from within his field of specialty (neurobiology). Specifically, in this case:
Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR)
What is it? To quote from his own dedicated site on the topic:
❝What is NSDR (Yoga Nidra)? Non-Sleep Deep Rest, also known as NSDR, is a method of deep relaxation developed by Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist at Stanford University School of Medicine.
It’s a process that combines controlled breathing and detailed body scanning to bring you into a state of heightened awareness and profound relaxation. The main purpose of NSDR is to reduce stress, enhance focus, and improve overall well-being.❞
While it seems a bit bold of Dr. Huberman to claim that he developed yoga nidra, it is nevertheless reassuring to get a neurobiologist’s view on this:
How it works, by science
Dr. Huberman says that by monitoring EEG readings during NSDR, we can see how the brain slows down. Measurably!
- It goes from an active beta range of 13–30 Hz (normal waking) to a conscious meditation state of an alpha range of 8–13 Hz.
- However, with practice, it can drop further, into a theta range of 4–8 Hz.
- Ultimately, sustained SSDR practice can get us to 0.5–3 Hz.
This means that the brain is functioning in the delta range, something that typically only occurs during our deepest sleep.
You may be wondering: why is delta lower than theta? That’s not how I remember the Greek alphabet being ordered!
Indeed, while the Greek alphabet goes alpha beta gamma delta epsilon zeta eta theta (and so on), the brainwave frequency bands are:
- Gamma = concentrated focus, >30 Hz
- Beta = normal waking, 13–30 Hz
- Alpha = relaxed state, 8–13 Hz
- Theta = light sleep, 4–8 Hz
- Delta = deep sleep, 1–4 Hz
Source: Sleep Foundation ← with a nice infographic there too
NSDR uses somatic cues to engage our parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn enables us to reach those states. The steps are simple:
- Pick a time and place when you won’t be disturbed
- Lie on your back and make yourself comfortable
- Close your eyes as soon as you wish, and now that you’ve closed them, imagine closing them again. And again.
- Slowly bring your attention to each part of your body in turn, from head to toe. As your attention goes to each part, allow it to relax more.
- If you wish, you can repeat this process for another wave, or even a third.
- Find yourself well-rested!
Note: this engagement of the parasympathetic nervous system and slowing down of brain activity accesses restorative states not normally available while waking, but 10 minutes of NSDR will not replace 7–9 hours of sleep; nor will it give you the vital benefits of REM sleep specifically.
So: it’s an adjunct, not a replacement
Want to try it, but not sure where/how to start?
When you’re ready, let Dr. Huberman himself guide you through it in this shortish (10:49) soundtrack:
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Want to try it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later
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Almonds vs Macadamias – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing almonds to macadamias, we picked the almonds.
Why?
It’s not just our pro-almonds bias:
In terms of macros, almonds have 3x the protein and as well as more fiber and carbs, the ratio of which latter two give almonds the lower glycemic index, while macadamias have more total fat, and 4x the saturated fat percentage. All in all, we say this is a win for almonds in this category.
In the category of vitamins, almonds have more of vitamins B2, B3, B9, E, and choline, while macadamias have more of vitamins B1, B5, B6, and C. A modest 5:4 win for almonds, unless we consider that almonds have more than 47x as much vitamin E (almonds are an exceptionally good source of vitamin E), in which case, a stronger win for almonds.
When it comes to minerals, almonds have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while macadamias have more manganese. A very clear win for almonds.
Adding up the sections makes for a convincing overall win for almonds, but by all means enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!
Enjoy!
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Night School – by Dr. Richard Wiseman
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Sleep is a largely neglected part of health for most people. Compared to factors like food and exercise, it’s something that experientially we’re mostly not present for! Little wonder then that we also often feel like it’s outside of our control.
While Dr. Wiseman does cover the usual advices with regard to getting good sleep, this book has a lot more than that.
Assuming that they go beyond the above, resources about sleep can usually be divided into one of two categories:
- Hard science: lots about brainwaves, sleep phases, circadian rhythms, melatonin production, etc… But nothing very inspiring!
- Fantastical whimsy: lots about dreams, spiritualism, and not a scientific source to be found… Nothing very concrete!
This book does better.
We get the science and the wonder. When it comes to lucid dreaming, sleep-learning, sleep hypnosis, or a miraculously reduced need for sleep, everything comes with copious scientific sources or not at all. Dr. Wiseman is well-known in his field for brining scientific skepticism to paranormal claims, by the way—so it’s nice to read how he can do this without losing his sense of wonder. Think of him as the Carl Sagan of sleep, perhaps.
Style-wise, the book is pop-science and easy-reading. Unsurprising, for a professional public educator and science-popularizer.
Structurally, the main part of the book is divided into lessons. Each of these come with background science and principles first, then a problem that we might want to solve, then exercises to do, to get the thing we want. It’s at once a textbook and an instruction manual.
Bottom line: this is a very inspiring book with a lot of science. Whether you’re looking to measurably boost your working memory or heal trauma through dreams, this book has everything.
Click here to check out Night School and learn what your brain can do!
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Pomegranate vs Apricot – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing pomegranate to apricot, we picked the pomegranate.
Why?
Both are great! Top tier fruits. But ultimately, pomegranate does have more to offer:
In terms of macros, pomegranate has more protein, carbs, and fiber (and even a little healthy fat—it’s the seeds); the main deciding factor on macros for fruits is almost always the fiber, and that’s the case here, which is why we hand the win to pomegranates in this category.
In the category of vitamins, pomegranates have more of vitamins B1, B2, b5, B6, B7, B9, K, and choline, while apricots have more of vitamins A, B3, and E. A clear win for pomegranates here.
When it comes to minerals, pomegranate has more copper, calcium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc, while apricots boast just a little more calcium and iron. Another easy win for pomegranates.
Looking at polyphenols, apricots finally win a category, with greater overall polyphenol coverage.
Which is good, but not enough to overcome the other three categories all being in pomegranates’ favor—hence the overall win for pomegranates here!
Of course, the solution is to enjoy both! Diversity is good, for exactly such reasons as this.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Pomegranate’s Health Gifts Are Mostly In Its Peel ← in other words, the one part of the fruit you don’t normally eat. However! It can be dried and ground into a powder supplement, or else made in pomegranate tea.
Enjoy!
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