Yr 9 self inflicted pressure for academic achievement

[bluefineliner]

DD2 has always been a perfectionist and was keen to go to our local girls grammar school. She is able academically, and she decided where she went to school, we have always let her choose her preferences.

I hoped she would cope with the workload and maintain an average position in her class so she didn't feel she couldn't keep up. Now at the end of yr9 she is pretty much the top of all her subjects, but works very hard and puts huge effort in to being 'good' at everything. My future concern is the amount of pressure she puts on herself, with no input from us, and if this may be a problem as she goes into her GCSE years. So far, no indication of this, other than a snappy teen when things get on top of her.

Has anyone else had a child like this, and how did they get on with GCSEs and A levels? Did their commitment continue, or falter? She is naturally highly strung and can be hard work at home, but this has been the same her whole life! She is the opposite of our DD1 who was bright but chilled with it.

My DH and I continually advise her to slow down, take a rest, that it is ok to fail some things, etc etc, but it makes no difference. The school is high achieving, but she isn't being pushed to this level by them, it comes from within her. She loves school and her teachers seem to like her as a student too.

Just looking for anyone with similar experiences.

I personally found that honesty (in advice to me) helped a lot.

Someone I admired told me that I could achieve pretty much anything I wanted to. The thing I had to decide was how much I was willing to give up in trying to achieve it.

That advice has set me up pretty well for life (currently 36).

Your daughter is clearly doing well, tell her that and that you're proud of her if you are. Also that you want her to be happy and love her no matter what her grades are

Your post basically describes me. I would try not to worry about her but just support her as you are doing. As a teenager I put a huge amount of pressure on myself at times but it did not damage my academic performance, quite the contrary. I got very high academic grades and a really good job etc, I also had friends, had fun at university, got married, had children etc. But at times I was very anxious, not to the point of a MH condition but to the point that it wasn’t a nice feeling at all and was hard to deal with. But I think it’s just the way I am. I’m still like it now to some extent and still show those same perfectionist tendencies although perhaps not as much as I did. One of my children is also like this, whereas my other children are much more chilled out. I do try to challenge the perfectionist tendencies of my one child who is like this but without much success!

I was also like this and now I have two boys, one in Y10 who is ok but more interested in friendships and hanging out and one in Y8 who is terrified of failing so he works so hard. I have even had to tell him that I don't mind if he gets an extension as he can get so upset if he thinks he forgot to do some piece of homework etc