It's
really hard.
I'm assuming that this comes as a package with perfectionistic tendencies, yes?
I did a LOT of reading about this two years ago when our then-11yo DD was melting down. It's task-avoidant perfectionism and self-handicapping, if you want to investigate what the research on the subject has to say.
It sounds as though you have the same sort of package deal that we do, though-- that is, a child who is definitively
intrinsic in outlook, and yet at the same time, driven to severe anxiety re: perfectionistic tendencies. This means that they both reject
and crave external recognition... and that extrinsic motivators (prizes, earned rewards, sticker charts, etc.) are an express route to-- well, somewhere hot and underground.
How has the school environment been for her? Is she anything like appropriately placed in terms of her readiness level?
That's what we attribute this package of problems to, at least in our daughter. She learned the perfectionism (thanks, school. Thanks a LOT.
), and the rest followed naturally given her innate temperment and previous leanings. She has never been particularly willing to be a "trained seal" and perform on command when there isn't anything meaningful (e.g. "intrinsically rewarding") in it for her.
I don't usually say this to anyone about schooling situations... but if your gut tells you that the schooling environment is causing this-- the only way to realistically combat that is going to be to pull the child OUT of school in favor of homeschooling. Truly. There isn't any other way to decouple the performance rewards (grades) from the child's efforts.
My daughter is still like a recovering JUNKIE with those stupid A+ grades in her gradebook. She is obsessive about maintaining 99-100% averages in all of her classes. We are constantly doing remediation on that score. I'd avoid that if you can.
At the same time, of course, you DO want your child to develop a sense of authentic pride in accomplishments... and to do that, the child has to face some of their weaknesses and tolerate real
challenge, which is frankly incompatible with this kind of perfectionism. They certainly aren't going to voluntarily place themselves in that situation. We
do still force "participation" in some things. The choice to fail or succeed isn't ours, but hers... but we do keep making her do things, and a lot of those things we demand are things that work at broadening that proximal zone (fighting Goldilocks syndrome).
We celebrate openly when our DD tries (really tries, I mean, not just goes through the motions with an eye toward intentional failure) something and does merely "well" or even "mediocre" without melting down.
We encourage her to take intellectual and social risks-- sometimes fairly forcefully, as noted.
We CONSTANTLY are on her about negative self-talk.
We NEVER-EVER-EVER praise "results" anymore... and very definitely NOT 100% results... we praise her personal effort in proportion to that effort, and we praise her committment to personal excellence.
We openly criticize (if you'll pardon the phrase) half-arsed efforts, no matter WHAT those result in, if it's something that is worthy of more respect/care. (But this is nuanced-- not EVERYTHING
is worth it, and we all know it.)
We are also not very sympathetic with engineered failure. We either ignore it, call it what it is, or quietly insist on remediation. That way there is no intrinsic reward for that failure, and it COSTS her something to do it. KWIM?
It's a long, slow, and painful road, but maybe it helps to know that you aren't alone. Wish I had better advice.
