Unfortunately, a focus on perfection has opened pathways for many students to live with the perception that only perfection is acceptable. And some children grow up with the idea that they have to be perfect for people to love them. One way to look at the orientation of a classroom is to watch for both the teacher s and students reactions to mistakes. When mistakes are welcome, learning is enhanced - first because they are invaluable clues as to how the student is thinking, and second, because to welcome mistakes is to create a climate of safety that ultimately promotes more successful learning . When a student expects perfection but errs, he often faces self-rejection or failure.
Young people marginalize themselves, feel like failures because they make mistakes.
It leaves students in a situation where they do not want to admit that they make mistakes in other areas. Perfectionism can also negate a willingness to say they are sorry and apologize because they are afraid that if they ever admit to wrongdoing people will reject them. With these students, perfectionism becomes so tyrannical to them that they develop anxiety attacks. Such attacks have their beginnings in the idea that only perfect work is acceptable. This leads to a thinking pattern that they can't do it because it won't be good enough.