Dealing with anxiety on things that don't matter

[Dmmetler]

DD7 is working through Mathletics in her goal to get to Algebra, and she's done well until she got to a whole section of "choose the best unit for this"-involving pictures. Invariably, the first picture she gets that she's unsure of (and honestly, some of them I'd be unsure of myself-for example, a picture of a bucket, where it's impossible to tell if it's a child's sand castle bucket, that might, maybe, hold a few cups and be reasonably measured in cups or pints, or a home depot 5 gallon one). She has no trouble with real objects.

 

She's instantly paralyzed, devolves to tears, and is completely incapable of going on. If she guesses and makes a mistake, it doesn't help-she's even worse off, and if she guesses right, she's still completely not confident in her answer.

 

If she goes to a live round after that, she's so unsure of herself that she writes out everything (even 25+4) and freaks out when she sees them getting ahead of her. It's like not knowing the answer for sure totally terrifies her.

 

Now, in the grand scheme of things, I don't CARE if she can't tell whether a picture of a bucket that's 1 1/2 in tall is supposed to be measured in pints or gallons. When we reached a similar block in telling time on pictures of clocks, I simply skipped that section of SM and went on, and eventually she had enough confidence on the real clock to compare it. And I could simply skip her to the next level on mathletics, or go in and do those particular activities for her so she can move on-and really, see no trouble in doing so. But I'm VERY concerned about the paralysis and that she loses all confidence on doing skills she's already mastered after feeling like she's failed at even one thing, especially since this is my child who SAYS she wants to do competitions.

 

I've tried to keep work challenging for her so that she makes mistakes, and she does fairly well when she's making mistakes that are under her control, if that makes any sense-but when she doesn't know where to start (when the picture of the worm could easily be a snake, and she knows good and well that snakes come in a wide range of sizes, so she's panicking on whether it's a little garter snake or an anaconda) that she freaks out. And that's not an atypical testing situation at all.

[Uff Da!]

nm

 

[Embassy]

:grouphug:

 

I'd be tempted to try to coax her away from her interest in Mathletics for now. I might fish around to see if there is a different activity that sparks her interest and put more time into that and shelve the Mathletics for later. It sounds like the Mathletics is set up to reward correctness and that probably isn't the best environment for a young perfectionist.

 

My oldest perfectionist (I have 2 of them) is only 10, but over the last few years he has really matured. He still struggles with not getting everything correct and I have to continually remind him that I want him to make mistakes - that I don't expect him to get them all right. I also have to watch what I do and say too (I have a ways to go with this). When he was 7 he really struggled even playing games because he was crushed when he didn't win. Now that is rare.

[Greenmama2]

I wonder if this is in part why she is drawn to competing?

[jenbrdsly]

Here's a tip from the SENG conference that stuck with me. Try using the words "That's good enough" about your own performance frequently in front of your child with perfectionist tendencies. Maybe that could help?

[garddwr]

Here's a tip from the SENG conference that stuck with me. Try using the words "That's good enough" about your own performance frequently in front of your child with perfectionist tendencies. Maybe that could help?

 

Thanks for the tip! I think I'll start saying that more often. My dd9 often runs up against the roadblock of her own perfectionism...

[jenbrdsly]

I just remembered something else I heard that might help. This one is from a Psychologist in Seattle who I heard give a talk about raising resilient children. He suggested a reading list that I've been working through. I have it on my bog here. Some of the books you might have already read.

[serendipitous journey]

I have only a moment, and will try to flesh this out later -- but we, for about a year or so, explicitly taught and rewarded continuing after frustration/mistakes.

 

Frankly, unless you have a strong concern about weight, a sweet treat is ideal for this -- the sugar/fat actually renormalizes stress hormones. We did a few m&ms or a little square of a bigger bar, or a Milk Dud or Junior Mint, something like that.

 

When Button would crack up, at first I would step away from the situation a bit, move him physically, give him a treat, and insist that he continue to some degree. At first he just had to keep doing math, skip the problem. Then he had to cross out a mistake and leave it (instead of destroying the page or scribbling all over the Problem Problem). Then we worked up to trying it again, all in very incremental steps, if he wouldn't do what was required we Stopped School (in which case he had the usual won't-do-school consequence, in his room for all school hours that day).

 

Now you may not want to impose discipline for this competition training, but the incremental-progress work and a little treat (also helps to make them move their bodies a bit -- run around the couch a few times, jump off the coffee table (well, we don't stand on tables, they jump from the hearth)) -- this also helps with the neural reset. Essentially their little stress systems are caught in a loop and you want to help train them out of it.

 

hth

 

ETA: we also explicitly teach that FEELING UPSET is an acceptable, normal, unpleasant but really OK state. They tend to get upset about being upset, b/c they can see that they are cracking up and looking ahead in time it is all very discouraging: they just KNOW they are going to melt down and they feel worse and worse. I don't know if this applies to yours, but we encourage the child to keep behaving appropriately/well despite the huge, horrible feelings. This paid off on a recent airplane trip, where Button was switched out of his window seat at the last minute and the whole plane was just waiting for him to sit down -- he started to melt down, and I kept telling him that it was okay to feel terrible as long as he did what he needed to, did the right thing, and he went to the newly assigned seat and strapped in, crying the whole time. Then he got chocolate :). The fellow next to me commented that he thought most adults needed that lesson!

 

ETA #2: Button rarely gets chocolate as a reward/incentive these days. But I do keep some on hand for traveling -- at least half of it is for me!!!!

Edited June 30, 2012 by serendipitous journey

[MathNut]

It helped my kids to work orally and work together on challenging problems - and I would talk out loud - explaining my reasoning process as we went.

 

Best

[Dmmetler]

The thing is, she's FINE on challenging problems-she can dive in, and if she makes a mistake it doesn't bother her. What bothers her appears to be when there are honestly multiple answers, multiple reasoning tracks that she sees as valid, but she also knows that only one is right. She's kind of like the legendary donkey between two bales of hay, who starved to death because he couldn't decide which to eat first.

[serendipitous journey]

The thing is, she's FINE on challenging problems-she can dive in, and if she makes a mistake it doesn't bother her. What bothers her appears to be when there are honestly multiple answers, multiple reasoning tracks that she sees as valid, but she also knows that only one is right. She's kind of like the legendary donkey between two bales of hay, who starved to death because he couldn't decide which to eat first.

 

This is why I am thinking that addressing the stress around this particular problem may be esp. helpful ... I don't know if it would be useful to point out to her that there may not be one right answer: it is perfectly possible that the best & brightest would disagree. Also, apparently one advantage boys tend to have on these tests is that they are more likely to treat it as a game: not take it too seriously, be willing to accept losses as a necessary part of the game & to take hits in order to keep moving forward. Might it be helpful to encourage a mindset like that?