What’s the best way to support perfectionistic students? Teachers don’t always agree

Parents, schools and policymakers all have roles giving teachers the support and resources they need to make students’ growth, and not perfection, the goal. (Van Tay Media/Unsplash) What’s the best way to support perfectionistic students? Teachers don’t always agree Published: July 6, 2026 10.19am EDT Share article Print article Imagine a student spending hours meticulously erasing and rewriting a paragraph that is already excellent. 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. 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 about teacher perspectives and understandings of perfectionism among students suggests teachers see a more complex and troubling reality. 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. Our research about teacher strategies for supporting perfectionistic students also reveals a common concern among teachers: perfectionistic students often become so consumed by getting top grades that learning tends to get sidelined. Read more: Pressure to seem perfect can strain teen relationships, but kindness from peers can help More than the drive to succeed Perfectionism is often misunderstood as simply having high standards or wanting to do well. 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’s perfectionist tendencies, I was inadvertently encouraging her to be lazy. There is a profound difference between healthy striving for excellence and demanding perfection. Perfectionism is a complex and multifaceted personality style that goes well beyond simply wanting to do our best. Our research about adolescent students’ understanding of their perfectionism shows the students themselves feel this burden viscerally. Perfectionist teens often described their perfectionism as a compulsive and exhausting battle to avoid any…