It's interesting, without a doubt, how it affects different people in different ways (and Dude could be right that your son is simply under challenged in school and bored. DD10 and myself are really plagued by perfectionism, and my DS8 is showing signs as well, so I tend to see it in a lot of behaviours). However... sloppiness (i.e. "don't care") is one of DD10's and my manifestations.
Hmmm. Trying to think of an example. My DD has probably the worst handwriting in her class. If you push her to do a good copy of something, it's tears, tantrums and lots of erasing. There is nothing wrong with her hands or her written output (in fact, she loves to draw and is very good at pencil sketching).
Her writing (composition) is bare minimum. If you ask her for a complete sentence she'll write something like "I sat." Her teacher is constantly saying she needs to exert more effort. Interestingly, she's a math kid in a language program with language gifted kids in her class, so there's stiff competition. Net result: she's not even going to try.
(Perfectionist thinking: "Oh well, if I had tried, I could have done the best in the class.")
She is also very, very musical. She composes her own songs and arrangements of existing songs on the piano. She won't play other people's sheet music (because it's obvious if she makes a mistake), but will play her own version (because no one will know if there's a mistake). Btw, getting her to practice is like PULLING TEETH.
Her room is A MESS. (This is more of an OCD/hoarder thing, but perfectionism & OCD sometimes overlap).
Re: games... When DS was 6 he used to put his king in your path if he felt he couldn't beat you at chess. He'd shrug and say "I don't care" but you could see the point where the game would turn out of his favor, and then he'd "dive" his king and want to start a new game.
(I have tons of similar examples for them but this post would be novel-length).
For myself, in school, it was last minute assignments (among other things). If I had started an essay the day it was assigned, the compulsion to make it perfect would have been so overwhelming that I simply couldn't have done anything. Instead I wrote all my essays the night before they were due.
(Perfectionist thinking: "I didn't have enough time. If I had started earlier when everyone else did, it would have been perfect.")
You get the idea... the examples aren't perfect (omg, can't believe I typed that, LOL) but they show that sometimes a drive for perfections yields the exact opposite.
Not sure if that helps. What to do? Not sure. I've written in other posts about how my DD has been helped by being pushed out of her comfort zone (i.e. so that she can't be perfect and has to learn to deal with it). It's definitely helped.
DS is the mildest of the three of us, and interestingly enough he's constantly challenged at school with his "Es".
For myself, I try little things like throwing something in the trash that should go in recycling. (LOL I'm cringing just typing that). Environmentalists take heart and know that I don't do this often
Petunia how challenged is your son at school? Is he accelerated?
