Reply to Inflexible, Perfectionist Parents, How Did You Relax Your Parenting?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
DH and I are research scientists and our natural bent is to research issues and strive for quality. We can be very picky: we didn't have a couch for 10 years because I couldn't find exactly the one I wanted for my living room! However, I am also very mindful of my children's mental health, because that too is part of my quest to make most things as good as they can get. My husband can be needlessly critical of the children, and I observe how damaging it is to their self-esteem and their relationship with him.

It seems your anxiety about the handling or quality of specific material items is getting in the way of finding balance. Could you harness your perfectionism to include more intangible but no less important aspects of your lives, such as your children's ability to adapt and be flexible? You need to model and teach that, and therefore you must consciously decide to show less rigidity.

I view flexibility as the most important soft skill in life. The jobs of the future may not be invented yet (my husband works in a field that did not exist when he trained for his first career), and your children will have to navigate a world where the USA may not be the world's greatest superpower, where they might have to work primarily in another language, where they might need to live in multiple different countries... they need to learn as children that their priorities may shift with time and that they need "sorting" skills to constantly reassess what's most important.

If you prioritize teaching them to be flexible instead of teaching them that there is only one right way to do something, only one standard to do things, you will be a much more effective parent.

I too don't like to medicate. However I have seen first hand what a well-time course of meds can do: my son has severe ADHD and for his 3 years of middle school, was medicated for it. During this time, his brain was freed from distractability and was able to learn how to learn - how to organize his day and use a planner, how to think ahead, how to re-read things before bed to remember them better the next day... And since his medication gave him undesirable side-effects and he had to stop, we saw how he retained those skills in high school, and how he was able to function despite not being medicated anymore.

Perhaps you could use medication with that goal in mind - to free your brain from its constant obsession with certain standards and qualities, and to learn a  flexibility self-talk routine that can persist even when you taper them off. I think you should discuss this goal with a therapist, while taking your meds.

Anecdotally, I've also found that being busier does wonder to relax standards! My mother had one child and was neurotic. My friends with only children tended to obsess until their careers became demanding enough to occupy more of their energies. I experienced my level of nitpickiness decrease after the birth of my second child! However, being busier does not correct the underlying personality trait, and as soon as you have nothing to do, the pickiness comes roaring back. Working on yourself is far more important.

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OP here, thank you for taking the time to write this. Lots of interesting ideas, esp re: meds.  [/quote]

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