Trouble With Perfect How Parents Can Avoid the Overachievement Trap and Still Raise Successful Children

Introducing the Seven Hypes When did you first feel it? Was it when your son was the last in his play group to learn to speak? When your daughter's pre-school interview was a screaming-dervish tantrum disaster? When your son's batting in T-ball was right out of Monty Python? When your middle-schooler wasn't recommended for a single honors class? We all face it at some point: the realization that our children, at least in some respects, aren't the best, brightest, prettiest, fastest, most enviable and perfect specimens who ever walked the earth. It can be a devastating feeling. One minute you are living the fantasy--beaming as your child accepts the Heisman trophy, Nobel Peace Prize, or National Book Award--and the next you are sitting in the dust with this rather, well, ordinary child. For most of us as parents, these moments of recognizing our child's frailties are an opportunity for growth: Ideally, we empathize with our child and create an appropriate strategy for dealing with the situation. In many cases, the only strategy is acceptance and love. Maybe our son won't be the Sammy Sousa of Westchester. Maybe our daughter will be better off in another nursery school. Sometimes, a bit of help is in order. A check with the pediatrician can confirm that a nonspeaking toddler doesn't have a hearing problem that's affecting speech. A check with the guidance counselor at school may reassure you about your son's nonhonors status, or encourage you to follow procedures for him to try an honors course on a trial basis. But wait a minute . . . Are you thinking that isn't the kind of help you had in mind? Are you thinking that you know a top-notch coach for that T-baller? Are you thinking that a letter from your neighbor, a heavy-hitting fund-raiser at the nursery school, could make the difference with the headmaster and convince her your daughter doesn't always act like she needs an exorcism? Perhaps you're thinking that a few calls to teachers, promises of tutors, and maybe even taking on a serious PTA job could convince that middle-school principal to be a little more liberal with his honors-class placements? As we try to sort out what strategy makes sense--the coach or maybe a bit of backyard practice; the donation or maybe a more low-key nursery school--we can't avoid the stress of these decisions. Actually the stress of parenting is made up of these kind of decisions, and they become more complicated as our lives become more demanding and our culture becomes more competitive. It's very hard to sort out what's a sensible choice when we're feeling the impulse to push our children. As Mel Levine, a highly esteemed developmental pediatrician, says, "Adults can be specialists; children must be generalists." We can decide we're good at teaching and not tennis, or good at financial research and not cleaning. We make our life choices based on these proclivities and skills, and, with luck and determination, we find roles that suit us and make us happy. But our kids have to be good at math, English, science, sports, community service, leadership, foreign languages, and so on. As the bar has been raised for them, the stress and pressure to perform becomes more and more intense. Unfortunately, a large part of this stress and pressure is due to the demands we, as parents, make on them. We want our kids to do well and get ahead. This is reasonable and important. But we don't want to push them so hard that the results are negative. Indeed, this is the theme of this book: How do you encourage your child to achieve in a healthy way? How do you judge how much nudging is good and how much is counterproductive? Some parents don't care: They're going to push no matter what. Parents of this sort are not reflective or introspective. It's very difficult to get them to change course or even consider reassessing their goals. But you, if you are reading this book, are probably different. You're openGuthrie, Elisabeth is the author of 'Trouble With Perfect How Parents Can Avoid the Overachievement Trap and Still Raise Successful Children', published 2002 under ISBN 9780767907514 and ISBN 0767907515.