Hi annaliisa,

First of all, welcome. I am a fairly new member to this board to and have found it excellent. And congratulations on identifying your daughter.

I only really have a response (wont say answer!) to the perfectionism as dd is only 4.5yo (and not remotely interested in instruction from either, but as she's only 4, we've let that slide for now!).

My dd is very perfectionistic, but we've had some success over the last year by really focusing on how she is using her abilities rather than what the outcome is. Also we have tried to find ways to show her that mistakes can result in fantastic outcomes (there are websites with examples too - my dd was very impressed that chocolate chip cookies were apparently a mistake).

We also don't pretend that something is great if it's not. We got this from The Optimistic Child by Martin E. Seligman, which I think is an excellent book on helping kids develop resilience and reduce perfectionism. For example one issue for us has been dd's drawing and her always becoming enraged because she can't draw as well as me or her dad etc (not that we're great drawers by any stretch). So rather than say 'your dog looks just like dad's', when it clearly doesn't, we might say 'you need to keep in mind that dad's an adult and he's had a lot of practice. As you get bigger you'll get more practice, and you'll get better and better'.

Another thing from that book is not to step in and 'fix' whatever it is that they're struggling with. I.e. sometimes dd gets frustrated with lego because she hasn't quite got the fine motor skills to get the littlest pieces in without really concentrating. At first I would always offer to help, but now I just leave her with it. Often she'll walk away in frustration, but she'll almost always come back to it and finish it off once she's calm.

Oh, and the last thing that we've found really helpful is looking back over old work to show that practice and getting bigger really do make a difference.

Good luck - wish I had something to offer on the instruction thing, will keep an eye on the responses you get to see what we can use too!