Mom in High Heels Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 Ugh. Indy (9-4th grade)is such a perfectionist and it's making me crazy. He's taking soooo long to do his work and gets upset to the point of tears if he doesn't get everything right, all the time. Today, I gave him several independent things to do while I took a shower, folded clothes, changed the sheets and did some general cleaning. I explained everything, made sure he understood and then left him to work. Two hours later he found me and had a question about how to write an address (he's learning about social letters and postcards in grammar). I came out 10 minutes later and he had not written a thing. I asked him why and he said he'd been thinking about what to write (he has to write a postcard to a friend using the proper format) and he said because he wanted it to be perfect. I looked through his other work and he had written 5 sentences with spelling words, and done one page of the 2 pages he had to do in grammar. That's it. In two hours! I hate to say it, but I kind of lost it with him. He takes so long and I feel like we're getting behind and he's doing school all day. Today he worked until nearly 5pm. James Bond and I have both talked to him about not needing to get everything right or perfect all the time, but it just doesn't seem to sink in. I've told him that we learn through our mistakes, but it doesn't make a difference. If he misses one problem in math he gets upset. If he misses 2 or 3 the waterworks start. I don't know what to do! I'd been using a timer to get him to do things in a certain amount of time with the understanding that he will have to complete anything he doesn't get done in the allotted time after we finish with everything else, but he got so stressed out about it became counterproductive. Any thoughts? What can I do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuPanda Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 You may have to give up on accomplishing anything else during school. At that age, it's often necessary to stay with them and supervise/prompt. If he's never been able to do this on his own, it's an unrealistic expectation at this point. Neither of my kids were great at independent work in elementary school, but were fine working alone for middle/high school. You may have to think much smaller with the independent work time. Start with five or ten minutes and expect it to be a WHILE before he can reliably school himself for two hours. At that age, 2 hours can be HALF of his school day (or more). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catwoman Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 You may have to give up on accomplishing anything else during school. At that age, it's often necessary to stay with them and supervise/prompt. If he's never been able to do this on his own, it's an unrealistic expectation at this point. Neither of my kids were great at independent work in elementary school, but were fine working alone for middle/high school. You may have to think much smaller with the independent work time. Start with five or ten minutes and expect it to be a WHILE before he can reliably school himself for two hours. At that age, 2 hours can be HALF of his school day (or more). :iagree: I think you're expecting too much of a 9yo. Honestly, I'm incredibly impressed that he was able to occupy himself quietly for 2 hours at a stretch, whether or not he was doing schoolwork the whole time or just daydreaming for some of the time. I think if you want the school day to be finished more quickly, you will need to be there while your ds does his work. I'm not saying you have to hover over him every single second, but just being in the same room can make a world of difference. My ds is a perfectionist, too, so I absolutely understand your frustration, but I think you will need to do a bit more handholding to keep your son focused and on-track if you don't want the school day to drag on and on. :grouphug: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trailofsparks Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 In our home, it finally caught up with me and dh: We had talked the talk, but when it came down to it, we need to work on this ourselves. We have decided to make some mistakes on purpose. Next we will have our dc also make some mistakes on purpose. It's a strange thought. Going to be harder to do, I think. But how else will we become comfortable (and not afraid) to make mistakes? Just sharing my thoughts. Only just beginning to implement. But when I talked to my dc about it, we were all giggling at the thought. Certainly that can't hurt:D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom in High Heels Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 You may have to give up on accomplishing anything else during school. At that age, it's often necessary to stay with them and supervise/prompt. If he's never been able to do this on his own, it's an unrealistic expectation at this point. Neither of my kids were great at independent work in elementary school, but were fine working alone for middle/high school. You may have to think much smaller with the independent work time. Start with five or ten minutes and expect it to be a WHILE before he can reliably school himself for two hours. At that age, 2 hours can be HALF of his school day (or more). At the end of 4th grade though, shouldn't he be able to do more independent work? He'll be in 5th next year and honestly, I can't hold his hand or hover over him. I am usually in the room, though I wasn't yesterday and I do spend part of the day (at least half, probably more) working with him, but he has to do some work work independently. Two and a half hours normally is half of his school day. We school from about 9:30-12 with a 15-30 minute break somewhere in there, have lunch and then work from 1-2:30/3. He worked late yesterday because he had to get it done. There were breaks, but he couldn't go out and play until it was all finished. Had he worked quicker, it would have all been done before 2pm. I honestly had no intention of him working 2 hours independently yesterday, but I had so much to do because things were piling up (stupid laundry) and I simply lost track of time. He should have been able to complete the 5 sentences and both pages of the worksheets in far less than 2 hours. These are things I know he can do alone. He wants everything to be absolutely perfect though, from the letters to the spacing of works, and it drags and drags. Even if I'm with him it takes forever because of this. I feel terrible that he's having to work so long, but I can't just let him quit because he's dragging his feet. The work has to be done or we'll never finish school. This issue seems to be getting worse and worse as he gets older. It's not because he doesn't want to do the work, he really enjoys grammar, but the need for perfection is killing us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuPanda Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Will teaching him to type help? Or shorter, timed assignments that you collect finished or not with extra incentives for completed work? Handing in incomplete work may bug him enough to hustle. Wright the grade so that finishing is as valuable as the right answer. I KNOW that's silly, but if it gets him to value efficiency over forming a perfect letter it could work. Also, he's a boy. Sometimes 9 is really 7 in Girl Years no matter how smart they are. (Not ALL boys . . .no flames please.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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