Episode 584: The Trap of Unrelenting Standards

The Whinypaluza Podcast

Hosts Rebecca and Seth Greene discuss the psychological impact of unrelenting high standards on children and how parental modeling plays a c

Key takeaways

• Parents should examine their own behaviors to see how they might be modeling perfectionism or high-pressure achievement.
• Reframing anxiety as 'excitement' or 'fun' can physiologically decrease the experience of fear during stressful moments.

Main topics

• Parental Modeling
• Perfectionism and Anxiety

Notable quotes

How did I contribute to this? What am I modeling?

Conclusion

The episode provides a roadmap for parents to move away from rigid, ou

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) You Speaker 2 (0:00) want me close? Speaker 3 (0:02) Closer. Oh Speaker 2 (0:03) baby, I'll get you close. Speaker 3 (0:04) Oh my gosh. Hello everyone. Speaker 2 (0:07) Happy White Igualdza Wednesday. Speaker 3 (0:09) I made it. You Speaker 2 (0:10) did. He Speaker 3 (0:11) texted me at school and he said, just a reminder that it's after 8 and you're going live at 9 so I hope you're coming home soon. Speaker 2 (0:20) And I might have mentioned that Dancing with the Stars was on. He Speaker 3 (0:24) knew I was excited for the Dancing with the Stars premiere. Is anybody watching? Because we're watching. Yes, we're watching. We love Dancing with the Stars. Very Speaker 2 (0:32) much. Speaker 3 (0:32) But that's not what we're Speaker 2 (0:33) here. Speaker 3 (0:33) We Speaker 2 (0:33) even went Speaker 3 (0:33) and Speaker 2 (0:34) saw it in person. We Speaker 3 (0:35) saw it in person on Mother's Day. It Speaker 2 (0:36) was so Speaker 3 (0:36) much fun. And I loved Speaker 2 (0:38) it. Speaker 3 (0:38) It Speaker 2 (0:38) was such Speaker 3 (0:38) a Speaker 2 (0:38) good Speaker 3 (0:38) Mother's Day. I loved it so much. Yes. It was awesome. Yes. I feel like I should move over with my whatever. Speaker 2 (0:45) Whatever. Speaker 3 (0:45) Whatever. It's 9 o'clock. We're tired. Speaker 3 (0:50) We are in full swing this week. It is homecoming week. Speaker 2 (0:55) The kids call it these days, ho-co. I don't know why we had to shorten homecoming. We Speaker 3 (1:01) didn't call it that, right? Speaker 2 (1:02) No, it was just homecoming. I also Speaker 3 (1:04) didn't get a homecoming proposal. Speaker 2 (1:08) Well, we didn't do those things back then. I Speaker 3 (1:10) didn't get a prom? It was getting a Speaker 2 (1:11) little ridiculous. Speaker 3 (1:13) Proposal, homecoming proposal. I wasn't dating Speaker 2 (1:15) you in high school, so it wouldn't have been me. You have to talk to whatever boy that we don't remember about took you. Speaker 3 (1:23) There was nobody before me. Speaker 2 (1:24) I'm sorry. We hadn't met yet. Speaker 3 (1:26) So there's a lot going on this week. Speaker 2 (1:28) Yes. Speaker 3 (1:29) Monday was super exciting because... Why is it Speaker 2 (1:32) called a proposal? It's just asking. Like, seriously. We've got to make it bigger. Sorry. I'll let you talk. Speaker 3 (1:38) Why do you care? Speaker 2 (1:39) It's your show. Please continue. Speaker 3 (1:41) So, Monday, Lily got her braces off. Yes. Huge news in the house. Speaker 2 (1:45) Yes. Speaker 3 (1:46) And a boy asked her to homecoming and it was so cute. Speaker 2 (1:49) Publicly. It was a homecoming proposal. It Speaker 3 (1:52) was so cute. And then, Tuesday, was there any homecoming stuff? What was Tuesday? Now Speaker 2 (1:59) I have auditions. Yeah. I don't have anything to do with homecoming. Speaker 3 (2:02) Okay. And then tonight was the parade and I got to drive my mom's convertible in the parade. Speaker 2 (2:08) Yes, how Speaker 3 (2:08) was that? It was so fun. Speaker 2 (2:09) Who was in your car? I Speaker 3 (2:11) had Ryan and Emily, I will tell you last names, after this. Okay, yep, Speaker 2 (2:15) yep, yep. Is this the Ryan that we know? Yes. Awesome. Speaker 3 (2:18) And I wanted Tegan to get in my car or Lyra. Right, another girl you knew. But they assigned who went in what car. Got it. So all the grandparents brought their convertibles. It was all... grandparents pulling in with their convertibles. And I got to drive in the parade and drive. So there's a homecoming court and two of the court was in my car and it was fun. I had so much fun. So I told my mom, I said, please keep your car for three more years. I said, I need your car for three more years. And I said, um, okay. So then after the parade, Speaker 2 (2:52) it was the powder Speaker 3 (2:54) puff game. So the boys cheerlead, the juniors and the senior boys do cheerleading. And the junior and senior girls played football. And it was fun. I mean, after the first half, I will be honest, I was done. Speaker 2 (3:06) You got the idea. Speaker 3 (3:07) I was ready to go, but my girls were there. So I was like, I also had people's things in my car. So I just waited. So it was a long night and we're home. And I didn't know. Ella and I sometimes talk about what we're writing about. I didn't know that Ella was writing about anxiety. Otherwise, I would have. And I need to coordinate. Speaker 2 (3:30) I Speaker 3 (3:31) need to coordinate. So sometimes I piggyback and sometimes I don't because she goes first on Tuesday. But sometimes we already know what we both want to write about and it doesn't coincide. So she did write about anxiety. Do you remember the title? Ella, do you remember the title? Anxiety makes no sense, which is true. It doesn't. So go to winyatruza.com and you can read her blog. She needs Speaker 2 (3:56) to. It's good. I printed it and it's in my journal. It's one of like three that I save in my journal. Speaker 3 (4:01) I think it's my favorite blog that she's written so far. And I posted something in my Winyatruza Mom group about anxiety that I want to share with you. And I absolutely love this way of looking at anxiety. If you flip it to, if you're an anxious person and you flip it to fun and you label things as fun and excited, then it changes the way your brain is experiencing and thinking about something and it decreases your anxiety. So like, for example, if I'm doing public speaking. Speaker 3 (4:39) And, you know, Seth and Ella have helped me with it. I'm so much better than I used to be. But I think about how fun it is. I'm like, just go have fun. And it takes the anxiety big balloon and it like bashes the air out of it. So just something about anxiety I wanted to share. But go read Ella's blog. My blog that I didn't share today because I was too busy. Oops. The Trap of Unrelenting Standards. Speaker 2 (5:04) So Speaker 3 (5:05) I haven't stopped. since I woke up. Speaker 2 (5:09) Before six. Speaker 3 (5:10) And I will post it tomorrow. But you can go read it, the full blog at whinypalooza.com, but let's talk about it. Yes. Speaker 2 (5:17) We Speaker 3 (5:18) are, what I was starting to post, and I didn't get to actually finish what I was writing, was that we are a family of high achievers. Speaker 2 (5:27) Yes, you were saying the other day, how did we do this? Speaker 3 (5:30) I'm going to tell you how we did this. Yes. So. I joke with Seth and I'll say something like, how did we get three high achieving children? And then I laugh after I say it because I look at him and he looks at me. So if there is something about your kids that you're like, why do they do this? I want you to stomp on your ego. I want you to get rid of the ego. And I want you to look in the mirror and I want you to say. How did I contribute to this? What am I modeling? What am I doing that my children do X? Right? How did I Speaker 2 (6:12) create this? Speaker 3 (6:13) How did I? And we're not, I'm not blaming us. I'm not saying we're to blame for everything. I'm just telling you that if Seth and I have three high achieving, overachieving, unrelenting standard type of children. Where did they Speaker 2 (6:27) get that from? Speaker 3 (6:28) Let's look a little bit in the mirror at. what are we doing as models for our children? If Speaker 2 (6:34) we had the opposite, what would we be doing that would have created that? Speaker 3 (6:38) Well, and the other thing is within a family, you could have one child who's overachieving and one child who you have to kick in the ass. You Speaker 2 (6:48) could. Speaker 3 (6:49) Anyways, moving on to modeling. Speaker 3 (6:55) What I'm going to say about modeling is how can we as parents maybe take it down a notch? What can we do