Same here - with DD10, and myself. She's doing much better after being put in the bottom of a split class last year. It's language immersion, which adds challenge, and she's a November birthday, so there were kids in her class close to 2 years older (she was a full head shorter than everyone else... they were all so... old! lol).
Prior to being in that class her perfectionism was absolutely crippling. Now it's still there, but not as dominant. She's much calmer. She's much... less reactive and temperamental, and much more willing to try again when something is challenging. She used to have a hair trigger to meltdowns if she couldn't achieve instant mastery, but now she's more resilient and somewhat able to face challenge.
So now we're on to our next dilemma. She's currently in a straight grade 5 class, French immersion, and in a pull out gifted math program. On her latest report card her teacher indicated that her attitude has improved a bit, but she's still coasting, exerting minimal effort. The good news is that this has gotten her Bs, which means that there's room for her to actually try. My dilemma is how do I motivate her? If she's coasting and napping and getting Bs, in her mind that's good enough. If I place value on only As in order to get her to exert some effort, I run the risk of aggravating the perfectionist beast (ie Bs aren't good enough) and losing all the progress we've made.
She needs to be back in a higher grade split, or she needs to be skipped. Socially this is not the best choice, because her friends are in her current class (it's a nice group of kids). Her teacher, who I absolutely love, is unfortunately one of those who won't challenge a kid unless they're exerting full effort already.
(sigh)
Anyway, Kelly0523 the only thing I can say is that my perfectionist has really benefited from being challenged. My DD was 8 when she was put in her mostly grade 5 class last year (there were double the 5s so they did mostly gr 5 curriculum), so the time is right! It was difficult at first - perfectionists FIGHT against their demons, that's for sure. There were LOTS of temper tantrums and meltdowns. We persevered and I have no regrets - we've definitely seen progress.
Good luck
