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Paralyzed by perfectionism


EmmaNZ
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I am hesitant to post on here, so forgive me please if you think it is the wrong board. I want to ask about my ds age 7 (8 next month). He is a very bright, capable, helpful young man. In almost all things he seems a couple of years older - his size, his ability in school, in sports, in almost everything. I have to say though that I wouldn't call him gifted, just bright.

 

He has always struggled with perfectionism, and will screw up a piece of work or throw a pencil if he makes a small mistake for example. He will not attempt art or drawing because he thinks 'he can't draw'. Recently though things seem to have escalated. We have been dealing with behaviour issues not really related to school, but also big issues in certain areas of school that he thinks are 'too hard' or that he'll 'never get it'. Mostly this happens in memorisation of all things. (We expect our children to memorise scripture starting very young, so this is not new to him, although recently the things he has been memorizing are not as familiar to him). It has got to the point, in this and other bits of school, where he simply refuses to try at all. He will just sit and cry or get angry and cause trouble. If he makes a mistake he calls himself stupid.

 

I have tried backing off completely, but that actually seemed to make it worse, like I was confirming to him that I don't think he can do it either. Actually I think he is capable of lots more, but I really try to minimise the distress for both of us my making things short.

 

Has anybody here gone through this? Anybody have any ideas of how to help?

 

Sorry this got long. Thanks for reading if you got this far!

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... will screw up a piece of work or throw a pencil if he makes a small mistake for example. He will not attempt art or drawing because he thinks 'he can't draw'..... He will just sit and cry or get angry and cause trouble. If he makes a mistake he calls himself stupid

 

My older is turning 8 in December. He does all of the above I quoted though less over the years. What work for us was finding areas where he can fail.

 

For example, he is good in math, but not exceptionally good. We put him in matheletics where kids his age can win him. Gives him a healthy frame of mind that he is not the top of the top.

 

For art and drawing, we put him in art classes. When he sees some kids who do very well and some kids who does around his level, he does not freak out over perfect so much anymore. My younger boy draws better than him and that did spark a perfectionism tantrum. However my younger boy is not as good in ceramics so no competition there.

 

We have the perfectionism problem for piano and violin too. For piano, its improving through the years so that now he would play even if its not 100% perfect. For violin, we are still working on it since he gets upset over holding the violin wrong.

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My older is turning 8 in December. He does all of the above I quoted though less over the years. What work for us was finding areas where he can fail.

 

For example, he is good in math, but not exceptionally good. We put him in matheletics where kids his age can win him. Gives him a healthy frame of mind that he is not the top of the top.

 

For art and drawing, we put him in art classes. When he sees some kids who do very well and some kids who does around his level, he does not freak out over perfect so much anymore. My younger boy draws better than him and that did spark a perfectionism tantrum. However my younger boy is not as good in ceramics so no competition there.

 

We have the perfectionism problem for piano and violin too. For piano, its improving through the years so that now he would play even if its not 100% perfect. For violin, we are still working on it since he gets upset over holding the violin wrong.

 

 

:iagree: The above method works best here too - finding activities that DS can struggle with and things in which there isn't always one "right" answer, i.e., drawing.

 

Also, pointing out mistakes that I make in his presence, reinforcing that EVERYONE is imperfect.

 

Finally, we got a lot of good ideas out of a book entitled "What to Do When Good Enough Isn't Good Enough - The Real Deal on Perfectionism", by Greenspon. It's aimed at kids (although we read through it together) and it was very eye-opening for my DS.

 

HTH!

Edited by Kay_ks
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She erased and rewrote every letter on every homework worksheet multiple times.

 

:grouphug:

 

Mine re-wrote and erase so many times, there were holes in his worksheets. Than we have to re-print the worksheet because he cry over the holes.

 

It does get better.

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I've actually cut erasers off pencils to try to keep my DD from erasing everything that's not perfect-after which she'll tear up or crumple up the pages-something like reversing a number in an entire page of algebra problems really, really upsets her.

 

It also drives me crazy when other people feed this. DD takes dance mostly BECAUSE it's something she's not naturally good at and was doing well at doing it "just for fun"-only to have her teacher drag her out to the waiting room to show me how she was doing a particular step wrong so I could "help her at home". I wanted to STRANGLE that teacher at that moment-because I'd been using dance for the past three years as something fun that DD could mess up on and still be OK with, and the dance teacher she had until this year understood that and worked with DD on relaxing and being happy with her attempts and gradual improvement over time. Having the teacher treat moving her back foot when she was supposed to just move her heel like it was the most important thing in the world was exactly the lesson I didn't want taught!

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Perfectionism rears its ugly head in our house almost daily. My biggest challenge is to not lose my cool, because it definitely makes it worse. Sometimes I leave my dd crying and/or screaming about how hard something is. I tell her calmly that I will be back in a minute, then I go make a cup of tea for myself and for her. Usually, she will have calmed down and worked out whatever was giving her trouble. I don't know why learning some things is so painful for her and why making mistakes gets her so upset--while other things she will easily let slide. I just hope she continues to mature and work through it...exhausting, isn't it?

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EmmaNZ: Well at least I know I'm not alone.

 

That's what I thought reading this thread. I am going the book route for now and hoping that, if she hears it read from a book, maybe she'll listen. She listens to authors better than mom. :glare:

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