Minding Young Minds: The impact of a school based intervention targeting perfectionism and self-compassion on children’s psychological health

The perfectionism intervention was informed by Shafran and colleagues’ (2002) model of clinical perfectionism within a cognitive-behavioural framework. The content was adapted for children and designed to be highly engaging, involving different communication media, and short but targeted activities. It consisted of three lessons (each of 40 minutes duration), administered once a week, during normal class lessons, by a trainee clinical psychologist, Lesson 1 content incorporated a description of perfectionism (differentiating between perfectionism that causes problems from ‘trying your best’), the good and the bad aspects of mistakes, finishing with a message challenging over-dependence of self-evaluation on the determined pursuit of personally demanding standards e.g., “You are more than your achievements”. Lesson 2, delivered one week after the initial lesson, focused on developing skills related to dealing with self-criticism and paying attention to, and celebrating, successes. Lesson 3 focused on self-compassion.