After “the craziest admissions season ever” last year, and as we head into what will surely be another highly competitive cycle, high school students are understandably increasingly anxious about their academics. I’ve witnessed this firsthand during my years teaching high school and middle school—seeing students vibrating from the stress and barely holding it together, 12-year-olds for whom nothing less than “effortless perfection” will do.
Perfectionism is often dismissed as a superficial cliche about upholding flawless appearances. However, it’s much more complex than that. It is not simply narcissism or a competitive desire to be the best; rather, it serves as a coping mechanism for people dealing with anxiety, trauma, shame, and people-pleasing tendencies to numb uncomfortable feelings. There is a significant mental health component that is frequently overlooked.
In her best-selling book Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic—and What We Can Do About It, Jennifer Wallace references the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2021 public health advisory, which notes significant increases in the prevalence of mental health challenges among young people. Wallace ties this increase to toxic achievement culture, claiming that today’s youth are trapped in a “gilded pressure cooker.” Everyone involved—parents, teachers, administrators, and the students themselves—is struggling to keep up with the rising expectations of what a December 2023 New York Times article describes as the elite college arms race and the excessive pressure to excel.
Educators know all too well the negative impacts that the weight of such expectations can have on promising students who later find themselves debilitatingly burned out, or worse. What can educators do to discourage unhealthy perfectionist mindsets in the classroom?
Recognize reassurance addiction.
I define “reassurance addiction” as craving external validation to an unhealthy extent. Reassurance addiction functions by causing students to stop trusting their judgment when it comes to personal worth, which is why grades and other quantitative forms of proof become such a fixation. In search of validation, students often overexert themselves.
Clinical psychologist Lisa Damour notes in a 2019 New York Times opinion piece, “As the workload rises through the academic years, if the only strategy they have is to give it 100% in everything, students become overwhelmed. Our kids need permission to rethink what a good student is and let go of an unhealthy work ethic.” Thus, teachers would do well to stop praising students’ overexertion, even if it results in good grades.
So, say an eighth grader walks into the classroom and tells their teacher they stayed up until 2 a.m. working on the final project to make sure it was perfect. The teacher might respond with something like:
I admire your persistence and recognize effort is important, but your sleep matters too. I don’t want this to come across as a criticism, but how might you have been more tactical with your time? Were the last two hours necessary or only worth marginal returns? I have seen strong students like you burn out, so I want to encourage you to be intentional with your energy. If those extra hours enhanced your learning, that’s great. But if it was mainly for reassurance, let’s check in. If you’re staying up this late in middle school, I’m worried about what high school and college might bring. Let’s set up a meeting to discuss how I can support you moving forward.
Assisting high-achieving students in developing the self-regulatory skills that signal when to disengage is likely to have a significant long-term impact in and out of the classroom.
Correct all-or-nothing thinking.
Many high-achieving students have just one vision of what success looks like and have a difficult time accepting alternative approaches to achieving their goals. This inflexible thinking makes them more prone to anxiety because situations involving uncertainty can quickly become overwhelming and possibly destabilizing.
“There is a feeling that if they stray at all from a perfect record, their chances of success will completely disappear… that ‘If I drop this class, I’m going to be homeless!’” says Rebecca Kornbluh, former director of counseling and psychological services at Pomona College, in Barrett Seaman’s book Binge: What Your College Student Won’t Tell You. Today’s students see themselves as products that have not yet achieved their market potential—and won’t if they make even one mistake.
Educators can counteract this dangerous frame of mind by reinforcing that success is not about picking one path and perfectly following it, but rather about being adaptive when inevitable challenges and setbacks occur. The conversation might look something like this:
Student: You don’t understand, I want to be a doctor. Medical school requires perfection. I cannot afford a single slip-up.
Teacher: I’m concerned you might be limiting yourself with that mindset. In medicine, or any similarly competitive career path, there are multiple routes to reaching your goals. I have a friend who had to retake organic chemistry in college after failing it the first time, and she’s a surgeon now. I also know someone who attended a community college that served as a pathway to medical school, and he just finished his plastic surgery residency at UCLA. Their journeys all required faith in their resilience. The determination to keep trying after hitting roadblocks is the key to success—not perfection.
Student: But how can I be sure what happened for them is going to happen for me?
Teacher: There are no guarantees, but my advice is to avoid evaluating yourself like an exam where you start with a score of 100 and lose points for every mistake. Instead, think of it more like a basketball game, where you’re constantly adding points to your score. Sure, you miss an easy layup now and then, but you always have the chance to regain possession of the ball. This approach allows for more forgiveness and flexibility, which is vital for your mental health.
Debunk the myth that an academically successful child must be “fine.”
When writing my book, The Effortless Perfection Myth, I interviewed female-identifying undergraduates of different races, sexualities, and socioeconomic statuses at more than 15 U.S. higher education institutions. I noticed a trend among the interviewees wherein they felt like whatever they were experiencing wasn’t “bad enough” to feel the way they were feeling or like they hadn’t “earned” their mental health struggles. There was a fear of being seen as weak, shallow, unappreciative, and attention-seeking to ask for help. So they resolved to keep their issues to themselves and silently suffer.
In her book The Price of Privilege, psychologist Madeline Levine writes, “Parents generally know when their children are troubled, but they are reluctant to seek professional help unless the problems are flagrant and disruptive. The kid who… gets in fights or has run-ins with the law is much more likely to get help than the child who is quietly despondent, drinking, and cutting herself in private.”
Academic success is perceived as a sign of maturity and positive emotional health, so even when a child complains of somatic anxiety symptoms (like an upset stomach or insomnia), the adults in their lives often assume they are fine. In reality, they may be far from fine.
Levine notes that perfectionism is highly correlated with depression and suicide. Gifted students who rely on a perfectionist mindset to propel them through their studies are worth keeping an eye on, as their idealistic and self-critical nature sometimes leads to tragic outcomes.
If a student is performing well but seems “off”—such as being lethargic, disengaged in class, complaining of somatic issues, or looking visibly upset—it’s important to reach out to them. Sharing a personal story that relates to the student’s struggles can make the conversation feel more communal rather than an intervention addressing a flaw solely on their part. That conversation may sound something like this:
I’ve noticed you’ve seemed a bit down recently, and I want you to know I care about your mental well-being, not just your academic performance. I also felt a lot of pressure to succeed in high school. I thought my parents needed me to be the child they wouldn’t have to worry about. With two younger siblings requiring extra time and energy, I tried to make my parents’ lives easier by doing my homework without being asked, avoiding trouble, and doing all the things that signaled I was a happy, well-adjusted child. However, underneath the facade, I struggled more than I let on, and I wish I’d been more open with those around me earlier on. Please know I’m here if you ever want to talk.
The Bottom Line
Renowned poverty and child adjustment researcher Suniya Luthar is quoted in Never Enough suggesting, “Critics of this generation say they are being coddled and overprotected, but I think it is quite the opposite … they’re being crushed by expectations to accomplish more and more.”
We must remember to periodically check in on students who struggle with perfectionism. Their ways of signaling for help may appear significantly different from what teachers are accustomed to, but that does not diminish the reality that they may still desperately need support. Schools would benefit from not only judging the success of their institutions by the number of merit scholars and Ivy League acceptances they produce but also by the mental well-being of their students. Rates of anxiety, depression, disordered eating, and substance abuse warrant just as much attention—if not more.