Mummies Curse Kills Teenagers

800 Suicides per year

Could it be the curse of perfectionism that is at the route cause of our reported 800 deaths per year in our youth population, and is this why I am seeing an increasing number of young men and women coming to see me to find solutions to their terrifying anxieties. These anxieties can manifest themselves in the most peculiar of ways ranging from being afraid to be sick or be near sick

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(emetephobia) to varying degrees of social phobia and agoraphobia, to feeling so detached and disconnected from life that they are unable to recognise who they are, and I am not talking just on an emotional level here.  Imagine what it must feel like if you look into the mirror and can’t recognise the face that is looking back at you.  Being a teenager was always difficult and I can remember many anxious moments from my own past, but I can’t help wondering if there are more pressures on our youth today that are unique to the era than there ever were in my school days.

Home work reaching epic proportions

From about the age of eleven right the way through to college years the teenagers that I see seem to be bombarded with assignments and tests with an ever increasing demand being placed on their time and their psyche.  Just this week one teenager told me that she had been given three assignments to do at school all on a Friday and all to be delivered by Monday.  This meant that this young woman would have had to spend a minimum of four and a half hours over the week end producing work for these teachers.  In fact she has apparently been told by her teachers that she is expected to put in about ninety minutes of homework every day so that she can achieve her A levels at the required level to be eligible to  enter a University of her choice.  This young woman was a perfectionist so the realistic time frame she had to spend on homework was far in excess that what was recommended simply because in her mind she had to have an A at least, A+ if she could get it.  I can’t help smile at what seems to be an assumption that this young woman has no life after school.  My mother would have been furious if I had arrived home to tell her I had 1.5 hours of home work to do.  She would have told me I could do it after I had completed my chores for the day which would have amounted to feeding and

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cleaning the animals, chickens, goat and horses, dogs and cats; tidying up the house and sitting down to eat with the family.  She wouldn’t of held back from telling me that if I hadn’t got the time to do my work in school  then I should remind my teachers that they weren’t doing their jobs properly, and she wouldn’t have been shy from telling them herself.  Perhaps that is why I left school with no qualifications at all.

The Curse of Perfectionism

But in those times this was the norm.  In general parents didn’t have aspirations for their children to go to University, it just wasn’t like it is today when almost every child from whichever background seems to be expected to do A levels and then get their place in the Uni of their choice.   In fact my highest aspiration at the time was just getting away from home and achieving adulthood.  Perhaps that’s why I was overlooked by the curse of perfectionism. There were still pressures at school to get our O levels and do well enough to get that ‘promised good job’ in an office.  That was the height of our aspirations in those days, not to work in a factory.  What with the age old problem of teenage jealousy and spite and teachers who would have been better placed in a boot camp I knew even then that my best chance of survival was to get out of school and into the world of work where I could grow my own self confidence.

Boys More Prone to Suicide

I can’t help but feel that our educational system is in some way letting our youth down.  Did these three teachers who had set this homework for my client not communicate with one another?  If they had been working together as a team perhaps they would have been able to stagger their assignments so that all three did not have to be done concurrently over a week end.  No wonder I see young people every day who are frightened and angry.  No wonder they feel let down by those people who are supposed to be nurturing them. It is no wonder at all that some of them feel as though they are powerless and life is a relentless set of demands to be fulfilled no matter how they feel about it.  Girls may appear to suffer with the curse of perfection more than boys because of the social pressures added to their burdens, girls are after all under extreme pressure to look good as well as be brainy these days, and yet the statistics show that two thirds more boys aged between 15 – 24 commit suicide than do girls.  What is more concerning about this is

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that I tend to see more girls than boys in my consulting room which indicates that even though girls are at less risk of suicide than boys are,  they are more likely to seek help when problems do occur. Another sign of the curses hold. Boys are supposed to be macho and not show feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. Girls at least are allowed to talk about it.

We all too often come across the situation where parents live their lives vicariously through their children, pushing their children forward to become actors, singers CEO’s because they can live their dream through them, and which parent does not want their child to do well at school so that they can land good jobs when the time is right. But this cannot be at the health of the child.  Status, good remuneration, all these things are concepts that are nice to have but they are not essentials.  The essentials lie in having happy relationships and good communication and a good work/life balance.  Having an average life with an average income and the average family shouldn’t be viewed as a bad thing. The truth is that not every child is University material.  If children as showing the signs of stress while taking their O and A levels what are the chances that University might just prove a stretch too far?

Hereditary Disease

The curse of perfectionism is handed down from mother and father to their children. It is extremely important to create a balance between studying and those other aspects of life that help to give us a sense of perspective. The things that keep our feet on the ground are family, friends and other interests away from the work and the pressure of ‘doing well’, these are the things that protect our children from depression and despair.

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Someone once told me the you could define status as “Buying things you don’t need, with money you can’t afford to impress people you don’t like”.  To me that sums all this desperation for achievement up very nicely. As an educationalist I most definitely don’t support elitism in our educational system.  The people who secure a place in University should not do so on their ability to pay so much as their ability to learn and attain a degree level education.  Just because it is what Mon and Dad want for little Johnny does not mean that it is the best thing for him.  Actually as an educationalist I agree much more with A S Neill the founder of Summerhill school.  He often said that he admired those who were skilled craftsmen more than those whose skills were purely intellectual. One of the rules of Summerhill was that attendance was optional. Neill held that the classes themselves could therefore be more rigorous. Students learned more quickly, and more deeply, because they were learning by choice, not compulsion. Indeed Neill who also involved himself in the rehabilitation of children found that the freedom to choose was the cure for delinquency rather than pscyhanalysis.

Sadly the majority of children and adults in our society are only able to access the mainstream systems of education and we only have to look at the state of our educated youth today to see what seeds that has sown.  However I wonder if they next time you get to thinking you should push you child into doing their homework or getting straight A’s you should ask yourself a pointed question.

“Who’s anxiety is this really”?   “Should my child be spending endless hours in their bedroom or in front of a computer trying to fathom the intricacies of Applied Physics, or would they be better served joining a youth club”?  After all I can attest to the fact that it is never too late to learn and as A S Neill proved only too well, when someone gets to the stage of understanding why they are learning and what benefits they will derive from that learning the pathway is smoother, their interest is sparked and it all becomes easier and quick.

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