Page 29 - SB-Polly Perfect

PARENT NOTES
TOPIC: Some of us demand that things should turn out the way we want and expect them to turn out. We can push ourselves and others toward these expectations without realizing that this Perfectionistic Thinking has so many negative consequences that it becomes self-defeating.
We spend a lot of time encouraging our children to do their best. We encourage them to work hard in school and in the games they play. This encouragement is warranted in most cases. There are some children that work very hard at tasks and their issue is not with a willing to work but with an irrational need to be “perfect.”
This need stems from the common irrational belief, “Everything should go my way and I should always get what I want.” They need for life to treat them perfectly... not that they will do everything perfectly. There are also children who have the same irrational belief and demand that everything turn out just the way I want it to but they don’t put out any effort (or very little). The problem is the same, a need to be (or be perceived as) “PERFECT.”
The following is an example of the phenomena illustrated in this story. Two children make a cake according to the directions on the box. They both follow these directions meticulously. When completed, their best efforts have produced two “perfect” cakes. They enter their cakes in a local contest and finish second and third. The child that finished third is excited about the yellow ribbon and the fact that their picture will be in the paper. The child that finished second is furious that he/she was “cheated” out of first place and this child derives no pleasure out of their red ribbon.
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