We have a similar situation. DS4 is a terrible perfectionist and is very sensitive and emotional. At the beginning of the school year, he often burst into tears when he couldn't spell a word or his penmanship wasn't all that he wanted it to be. Fortunately, he's at a private school that understands gifted kids and their issues, so his teacher has given him not only a radically accelerated curriculum in reading and math, but also a lot of help dealing with the perfectionism. For example, she tells DS that all the work he does in class is a "sloppy copy" and that if he wants perfection he can copy things over again when he's done. Of course he's too lazy to make the "perfect" copy, so he's getting used to living with "good enough." His level of comfort with making mistakes improved enormously after just a few weeks in school, thanks to the kind and patient efforts of this teacher.
I guess all of this is to say that some people get gifted kids and some people don't. It sounds like your counselor is in the latter category, so you might have to educate him/her yourself.
