Oh I agree, Grin. I didn't mean to suggest that it's all personality. Only that I KNOW my son is being challenged--I'm right there! But he's still having some wiggy, perfectionist moments. I think some of that is just how he's wired. He likes things just so and always has.
I think back to when he was not even two and would line all his Hot Wheels cars up PERFECTLY. If we moved one a fraction of an inch, he'd cry out in frustration and HAVE to fix it. So some of this was there long before school challenge was ever an issue.
Kriston,
I do know what you mean. For DS12 I have vivid memories of him sitting on my lap and encouraging me to make drawings of lines going various ways. I would 'indulge' him for some time, and then get tired, and try to encourage him to make his own drawings. Talk about Rampant Emotionalism. Total Tantrums. I figured that that was 'just who he was' and went back to drawing out his dreams for him. Then I showed him how to use MSPaint, and he would sit for hours and hours with the magnifying glass on, going dot by dot. All well and good, except, he wasn't learning how to control a crayon or pencil like other kids his age would have taken the same energy to tackle. Then we all puzzled over why he had such poor pencil control.
If I had it to do again, I would have 20% less sympathetic to how frustrated he felt to be a little boy in a big world with big dreams, and put up with 20% more tantrums, and modeled 100% confidence that he can choose what he focuses his mind on. Nowadays when he says: "I can't go to sleep, I'm too wound up" I confidently say - directing your mind is a habit, that always needs to be developed. You get to decide where your mind goes. Send your mind to the calm, ready for sleep place with me for one minute.
Honest. i read it in a book! (The Mind that Changes Itself)
Are these kids driven? Yes, like most kids but sometimes even moreso.
Do these kids have an early awareness of standards that other kids aren't even thinking about? Yes! Yes! Yes!
Can this cut short certian chances for normal development? It didi for my son in the areas of fine motor, jumping off high things, bike riding.
To Paraphrase Friedman, from Earth is Flat: We have to learn to use our Imaginations, and not let our imaginations run us!
My compromise is that we rename those 'pedal to the metal' moments as Intensity + Percosious Vision (I+PV???) instead of perfectionism. Defining difference is that it isn't that the child feels that they are worthless unless X is perfect. They just are bound and determined to have it like their vision. Both can look like R.E. but the underneath is different.
After all, a lot of writers say that gifted folks have the same % of perfectionism as everyone else - so I think we need a seperate concept that explains the mechanism for look-alike behavior in gifted folks. Part of it is the Ability/Vision Gap. Part of it is so many years without peers. KWIM?
I hope that helps....
Grinity
