If Your Own Parents Were Perfectionists
BY DR. JOSHUA COLEMAN
Many people were raised by parents who were so perfectionistic that the child grew up feeling like they could never please them. For some, this high bar helped them to become successful because it instilled a belief that you should always push harder. For others, it has led to a feeling of insecurity and low motivation, because of an internalized feeling that nothing they do is good enough.
If you were raised in this kind of household, it may have affected your parenting in one of two ways: Because you didn’t want your children to feel the same kind of pressure that you did, you may have adopted a position of not pushing your children. You may have worried that high expectations of them would cause them to feel like they couldn’t please you in the same way that you felt with your own parents.
On the other hand, it may have caused you to parent more like your parents than opposite of them. You may have been more perfectionistic in your parenting, and had a harder time feeling satisfied with their achievements. It may have also made it much harder for you to tolerate their criticism of you or your parenting since you’re already so hard on yourself. Now that you’re estranged, you may have an even harder time valuing what was good in your parenting since it’s hard to ever feel good enough.
In Tonight’s webinar we’ll discuss this and the following topics:
- How can understanding your childhood make you more resilient in dealing with estrangement?
- What are some of the ways that conflicts get passed down over the generations?
- What are some ways that your childhood traumas make it harder to either make amends or not personalize your child’s treatment of you?
- Based on your own childhood, what might you have concluded about what you do or don’t deserve in life?
- What is emotional regulation and why is it so important?
- How might experiences in your childhood make you more vulnerable to making mistakes with your own children? _
- How might you have been impacted if you were raised by self-centered parents?
- What has been the effect on you if you were raised by rejecting parents or raised in a chaotic environment?
- If you lost a parent to death or divorce, how might you have been affected by that?
- How might you have been impacted if you were raised by perfectionistic parents?
- What are some ways to work more deeply on self-forgiveness and self- compassion?
If you need help in this area, join us
TONIGHT: Tuesday, July 18th 530 Pacific, 630 Mountain, 730 Central, 830 Eastern
Free Study Guide Here
