Parker Martin Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 This ended up working out well, so I thought I'd share. I wanted to help my son work on handling frustration better and to trim down his perfectionist tendencies a little, so I bought him a Perplexus Rookie for his fifth birthday. My husband and I made an ironclad pact that we would not help our son with the game; he'd have to do it entirely by himself. We had a rule that if the game made him too upset, we'd take it away for a time, sometimes minutes to give him a chance to calm down and sometimes for a day to keep it from becoming an obsession. And it worked. My son liked the game, so he stuck with it, and over the course of a month and a half he went from screaming and angrily hurling the ball away when it fell off the track to mildly whining or sometimes only looking more determined. Yesterday, he beat the game, and it was a sweet, sweet victory because he'd had to do it entirely by himself, and it required hours and hours of practice. Just thought I'd share that in case someone else is looking for ways to work on instilling patience and appreciation of practice while combating frustration and perfectionism. There are two harder versions of the same puzzle, so there are options for older or more manually dexterous children. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
budeb Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 What a great idea . . . I have a son with the same tendencies. Thanks for sharing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenbrdsly Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 We love our Perplexus! Great idea! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sctigermom Posted March 27, 2012 Share Posted March 27, 2012 Never heard of it. Must find out. My 5 yr old sounds a lot like yours. *Scampers away to find out what this magical game is.* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 What a good idea! I would like to suggest games that contain an element of chance. You are bound to lose sometimes, no matter how hard you try. Something short like dominoes works well. Losing gracefully is a good life skill. : ) Letting them try to build or make things that obviously are way beyond their skill is not a bad idea, either. The trick is not to interfer by scaling down the project to a more reasonable size or by providing proper tools or materials or skills. It is good to do that some of the time, but a busy and hence "blind" parent is important for developing non-perfectionism. You just have to watch to make sure that they aren't avoiding doing projects themselves at all for fear of failing. Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
besroma Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 We love our Perplexus! Great idea! :iagree: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beth in SW WA Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 I just ordered this for dd8's birthday next week. Thanks for the tip! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyforlatin Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 I just ordered this for dd8's birthday next week. Thanks for the tip! Me too, thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parker Martin Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 I hope all of your kids like it as much as mine did. :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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