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    parentologyco, Smartlady60, petercgeelan, eterpstra, Valib90
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    Joined: Apr 2013
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    There is a difference between wanting to do one's best, and perfectionism.

    Doing one's best may involve getting halfway through a project, realizing you've learned so much that you can easily critique your initial work up to this point, and wanting to start over or at least polish up your work a bit (depending upon the amount of time available). This is a healthy, vulnerable, flexible way of thinking.

    Perfectionism may involve getting halfway through a project, realizing you've learned so much that you can easily critique your initial work up to this point, and becoming angry, frustrated, down on one's self, calling one's self stupid, deriding one's self, exploding... or perfectionism may involve freezing with procrastination to avoid reaching the point of making mistakes, because one does not yet have the tools to deal with their mistakes in a positive way. These are unhealthy, walled-off, isolated, inflexible ways of thinking, and may be intertwined with a person's unrealistic view of themselves, a negative view of mistakes, and/or a fragile concept of one's identity as "smart": Gifted kids may stop taking appropriate risks in order to always be "right" or always be seen as "smart" or never be "wrong", and this may work against them as a fixed mindset and lack of resilience.

    There are books which address the dangers of perfectionism, highlight how it does not serve one well, and help provide seeds for changes in one's thinking. People can learn to acknowledge their mistakes, take them in stride, learn from them, correct them, realizing that much of life is a reiterative process and that mistakes do not diminish us. Link to old post with good article.

    If nothing can talk your son out of valuing perfectionism...
    possibly he could be talked into valuing being perfectly resilient?

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    Regarding the late assignment of drafting-shapes-on-3D-printer-software that has to be performed on special computer/software to which he has limited access: note that BlocksCAD and Tinkercad are both student-oriented, 3D design software that run in a browser (no need to install any software) over the Internet, capable of producing STL files suitable for 3D printing. Tinkercad has a visual, drag-shapes-around-and-click sort of interface; BlocksCAD takes a more programming language approach (it's essentially the visual Scratch programming language combined with the OpenSCAD design package -- if your son has done any computer programming previously, this may be appealing). Autodesk, maker of a variety of professional quality CAD packages, makes some of its CAD software available for free to students: for instance, one such higher level package is Autodesk Fusion 360. And there are other free-version packages for 3D design, producing output suitable for 3D printing, also.

    So depending upon what the assignment really involves, a question that would occur to me would be whether it *really* needs to be done on that limited-access platform: could the assignment be modified for your son so that he could work on it (or something equivalent to it) on a more easily accessible platform? Also, some people (including me) have quite strong preferences regarding the operation of user interfaces for designing: maybe your son already loves the software the class is using, but if not, he might find some other software interface more to his taste. Or even if he really and truly has to complete the assignment on the school computer/package -- maybe some more leisurely, on his own time, experimentation using a different (but free! and accessible!) design package would enable him to feel more capable and be more efficient during his limited time on the school computer/package.

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    Thank you both for your input! Indigo, you are spot-on about the perfectionism, and I like your "perfectly resilient" idea! Might work!

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    Thanks for the feedback, hope you and kiddo have a great weekend!
    smile

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    The principal has told me that DS11 cannot have slow processing speed because he finished a 6th grade standardized multiple choice English test in less time than his classmates. What?! DS11 tests at college level on that type of test! Of course 6th grade was easy and fast! Duh! And the principal has refused to schedule a 504 revision meeting and denies that there was ever a 504 plan set up for him. HIS WIFE DETERMINED ELIGIBILITY AND SET UP THE PLAN! Omg, don't get me started! He told me that processing speed can't be accommodated if he's not taking stimulant medications. I could sue the school or just walk away from the mess. I have DS3 up and coming in to the school system and his father is extremely anti-homeschool, so I'm more concerned about burning bridges than pursuing justice.

    I'm looking at community college enrollment for DS11 next year. Harder classes and he can take fewer of them. I don't know if that's officially homeschool in my state but I've contacted the state's homeschool office for help.

    My conclusions from thie school year are
    1) don't reverse acceleration due to ADHD
    2) underachieving is a big deal

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