{"id":110710,"date":"2026-07-07T13:56:43","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T17:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=110710"},"modified":"2026-07-07T17:05:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T21:05:30","slug":"opinion-danielle-molnar-discusses-ways-to-support-perfectionistic-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2026\/07\/opinion-danielle-molnar-discusses-ways-to-support-perfectionistic-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Danielle Molnar discusses ways to support perfectionistic students"},"content":{"rendered":"

This piece written by Danielle Molnar, Professor of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University<\/em>, originally appeared in The Conversation<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Imagine a student spending hours meticulously erasing and rewriting a paragraph that is already excellent.<\/p>\n

Down the hall, another student asks her teacher to go over every line in the rubric before she begins writing. A third student breaks down in tears after losing a single mark on a math quiz.<\/p>\n

When people think about perfectionistic students, they often picture high achievers who are motivated, conscientious and are destined for future success. However, my research with colleagues\u00a0about teacher perspectives and understandings of perfectionism among students suggests teachers see\u00a0a more complex and troubling reality.<\/p>\n

In our interviews, teachers who often initially linked perfectionistic tendencies with high achievement tended to spend most of their time describing students who are struggling with anxiety and procrastination, are weighed down by their fear of making a mistake and are experiencing profound emotional distress.<\/p>\n

Our research about teacher strategies for supporting perfectionistic students\u00a0also reveals a common concern among teachers: perfectionistic students often become so consumed by getting top grades that learning tends to get sidelined.<\/p>\n

More than the drive to succeed<\/strong><\/p>\n

Perfectionism is often misunderstood as simply having high standards or wanting to do well.<\/p>\n

While delivering a workshop on perfectionism to high school students, a parent approached me in the parking lot afterwards, genuinely concerned my advice would backfire. She worried that by trying to lessen her daughter\u2019s perfectionist tendencies, I was inadvertently encouraging her to be lazy.<\/p>\n

There is a profound\u00a0difference between\u00a0healthy striving for excellence and demanding perfection. Perfectionism is a complex and multifaceted personality style that goes well beyond simply wanting to do our best.<\/p>\n

Our research about adolescent students\u2019 understanding of their perfectionism\u00a0shows the students themselves feel this burden viscerally. Perfectionist teens often described their perfectionism as a compulsive and exhausting battle to avoid any perceived flaws and maintain a perfect front.<\/p>\n

Many teens described their perfectionism as \u201cthis little angry voice that\u2019s just really mad all the time\u201d that drives them toward relentless social comparison and endless cycles of rechecking their work.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0these tendencies\u00a0can sometimes result in higher grades, they come at a steep price. When the fear of making mistakes becomes overwhelming, the self-critical voice can paralyze perfectionistic students, making it difficult to start or finish an assignment.<\/p>\n

Many teachers witness the fallout of these dynamics. In our study on teacher perspectives of student perfectionism, teachers highlighted how this incessant pressure can undermine students\u2019 self-worth, making them question their abilities and be hypersensitive to even mild critique.<\/p>\n

During our interviews with Canadian elementary and secondary teachers, a noticeable pattern emerged. Teachers reported that this pressure to succeed is changing the way perfectionistic students approach learning.<\/p>\n

Many teachers observed that these students tend to be hyper-focused on the minutiae of grading rubrics, constantly seek verbal reassurance that their work is exactly what the teacher wants and are often reluctant to take any sort of intellectual risk.<\/p>\n

Perfectionist students seem to be hyper-vigilant compliance seekers. Instead of engaging with a lesson and asking \u201cWhat does this mean?\u201d or \u201cHow does this work?\u201d, perfectionistic students are instead preoccupied with transactional questions such as \u201cWill this specific point be on the test?\u201d or \u201cExactly how many marks is this section worth?\u201d<\/p>\n

Learning involves trying things out, getting stuck, asking questions and being willing to be wrong, but perfectionistic students often avoid these risks. On paper they may look successful, but much of their energy goes into protecting their grades rather than engaging in the material.<\/p>\n

Amplifying the pressure<\/strong><\/p>\n

Teachers in our study saw perfectionism as being reinforced by systems that emphasize evaluation, comparison and constant measurement.<\/p>\n

In Ontario, standardized assessments, digital tracking and competitive university admissions all can contribute to a strong focus on performance.<\/p>\n

When success is reduced to a single score, classrooms tend to shift toward teaching for results rather than for exploration. Teachers said they often feel that pressure, and students can receive the message that grades matter more than learning.<\/p>\n

For perfectionistic students, this can heighten their fear of mistakes and push them further toward chasing grades over understanding.<\/p>\n

Teacher responses<\/strong><\/p>\n

Teachers we interviewed described their perfectionistic students as carrying the burden of unrealistically high expectations, along with a fragile sense of self-worth that rises and falls with their performance.<\/p>\n

Teachers also reported strong emotional reactions to small setbacks, from crying or lashing out to shutting down completely. The\u00a0need for perfection\u00a0can sometimes end up hurting their performance rather than improving it.<\/p>\n

A compelling finding from our research with teachers is that they do not always agree on the best way to help perfectionistic students.<\/p>\n

Some teachers prioritized relieving the students\u2019 immediate distress by offering generous extensions, frequent opportunities to rewrite and resubmit their work and a high degree of flexibility.<\/p>\n

Other teachers said they take a firmer and more structured approach. They enforce strict deadlines, place limits on the number of times a student can revise an assignment and even use timers during tasks for the younger students.<\/p>\n

The goal is not to rush students, but to create clear boundaries that prevent endless refinement. Rather than allowing a student to work on a project indefinitely, these teachers give students permission to stop, submit their work and accept that it is \u201cgood enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given what we know about perfectionism, firmer deadlines may be more helpful because they impose an external endpoint. This structural boundary disrupts the exhausting cycle of rewriting, over-thinking and chronic procrastination.<\/p>\n

However, educators must balance this structure with\u00a0an individualized approach. A strict deadline might ground one student while completely paralyzing another, making it critical to consider the broader context of a student\u2019s life and mental health.<\/p>\n

Fundamentally, these two teaching styles are not as contradictory as they first appear. Whether offering flexibility or enforcing structure, both strategies share the same therapeutic goal: breaking the cycle of perfectionism and helping students build healthier and more resilient relationships with achievement.<\/p>\n

Rethinking the goal of education<\/strong><\/p>\n

The purpose of education is to help young people discover their strengths, understand their weaknesses, and find the path that is right for them.<\/p>\n

Our research\u00a0shows teachers already do this and are doing their best. But they cannot do it alone.<\/p>\n

If we want students to develop into confident and resilient learners, parents, schools and policymakers must give teachers the support and resources they need to make growth, and not perfection, the goal.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Danielle Molnar, Professor of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University, recently published a piece in The Conversation about teachers’ strategies for supporting perfectionistic students. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,38],"tags":[5245,8485,522,5512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110710"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110710"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110718,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110710\/revisions\/110718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}