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(WCCO) Admit it. If your child brings home a "B+", deep down, there's a part of you that wishes it were an "A."

There's a lot of pressure to be perfect parents and to have perfect children. However, according to one local expert, trying to be perfect all the time isn't good for you.

"It's not a mental disorder, but it isn't healthy," said Dr. Tom Greenspon, a Twin Cities therapist and the author of "Freeing Our Families from Perfectionism."

"First of all, (perfectionism) is a desire to be perfect, and I'm talking about absolutely perfect, not almost perfect," explains Greenspon. "No matter how well they do on something, it always could have been better, and they're really beating themselves up about that."

Seventeen-year-old Rogers High School Junior Sabrina Hoover's been there and done that.

"My life was school, gymnastics, homework, sleep. School, gymnastics, homework... you know," she said. As a club gymnast, Sabrina spent six hours a day in the gym.

"I saw those girls and my coaches way more than my actual family," recalled Sabrina.

The pressure to be perfect was hard on Sabrina. Her mom, Shannon, used to work at Sabrina's school. She remembers what happened when Sabrina was in 7th grade.

"She would come to me and say, 'I've been thinking about my beam assignments since third hour, and I'm starting to see double, and I'm getting a migraine headache, and I'm going to go throw up,'" Shannon recalled.

It upset her.

"I thought, 'This is not healthy. This is no longer fun,'" said Shannon, who competed in club gymnastics as a child before quitting at age 12.

Greenspon thinks somewhere along the line, American parents stopped hoping their children would achieve more than they did and started expecting it.

"Some parents have gotten the idea that if their kids don't do exceptionally well, that's a reflection on them as parents," said Greenspon.

Sabrina's parents, Shannon and Kirk, say the family got "caught up" in gymnastics. Their daughter excelled, and they encouraged her.

"We just assumed, that if she wasn't going to be in the Olympics, she was at least going to do well enough that we assumed she would get a full-ride scholarship to go to college," Kirk admitted.

Those were some pretty big expectations.

"Maybe, I don't know if that's bad, but I would say, yeah," said Kirk.

"That's what she was setting up to do," said Shannon. "That's what she was ultimately training for, is a Division 1 scholarship."

Greenspon says parents' high expectations can lead to a child's perfectionism.

"It's going to be clear to most kids that at least their parents are disappointed in them if they don't do exceptionally well, and that's the conclusion they're going to come to, and that really is a significant part of the origins of perfectionism, I think," he said.

Sabrina gets angry with herself when she does poorly in the gym or in school.

"When you screw up, it's almost like you let yourself down completely," she explained.

Contrary to popular belief, perfectionism doesn't necessarily lead to success. Greenspon says studies of highly successful people find they're less likely to be perfectionists.

"The reason is that all this anxiety, if you're paying so much attention to how you're doing, as opposed to what you're doing, you get in your own way," said Greenspon.

So how should parents encourage children without driving them toward the anxiety of perfectionism? Greenspon's answer: Say things like, "We want you to go out there and do your best, because we think you'll really enjoy that, but if you're not the best, you're still okay with us."

He urges parents to let their children know what they like and appreciate about them.

"As many times as you can think of to say to your kid, 'Thanks for doing that,' or 'It's really neat to have you around,' or 'It's great to see you come home excited about your grades,'" said Greenspon. "Those kinds of things, you can say those all day long and you can never overdo that."

Sabrina made a tough decision. After quitting club gymnastics and coming back six months later, she left for good after her freshman year.

"It turned into work, rather than a hobby," she said.

Sabrina wanted to experience high school like a regular teenager. Now she does dance line, track, National Honor Society, marketing club and gymnastics -- high school gymnastics. She competes for the Rogers-Elk River high school team during the regular season and for Rogers in the postseason. She won the all-around title for Class A last year as a sophomore.

"On high school terms, I'm one of the best, but when it comes to club, no way. No way," Sabrina laughed.

That's okay with Sabrina and her family.

"We've got these high expectations," said Kirk, "But our kids are already in the top, their peers, we don't really need to push them to be number one."

Sabrina and her folks say their family is happier now that Sabrina has found a way to balance gymnastics with everything else life has to offer.

Paula Engelking, Producer
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