Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How to deal with a perfectionist?

Recently I have struggled with finding activities to do with my DS5. It was much easier before when he was 2 or 3 and happy just coloring and/or playing with numbers and letters. Now, he wants to be in the driver seat when we play which is fine but then if he sees me doing something "better" in his mind than him, then he throws a big tantrum and doesn't want to draw or build or whatever we are doing. Then, I feel frustrated because I am busy and have a 1 1/2 year old to take care of too and is trying hard to carve out sometime to play with him.

My DS5 is very hard on himself and feels embarrassed easily. He doesn't have the proper tools to regulate these feelings. So instead, he lashes out on me verbally or gets physical and throw things and screams.

Does anyone have experience with this? Does it get easier or does the child learn to deal with these emotions better as they get older?

I have tried getting him to calm down by sending him to his room, trying deep breathing, telling him it's ok to make mistakes that I make mistakes and that nobody is perfect. I try to get him to laugh. But it seems like when he's in that moment, he's stuck and can't shake it off no matter what I say or do. I do feel helpless and although I try not to react to him sometimes I can't help being pulled into his anger and frustration and instead of trying to help him I end up getting frustrated and angry at him too.

Ahhh...deep sign. Help!

Let's say you are building with blocks...could you knock your building over and talk out loud about how you are feeling and what your choices are and what you decide to do.

Example...oops I knocked my building over, I guess I could give up because I am the worst block builder to ever walk the face of the earth...or I could redesign my building so that it has more support on the bottom...or you know I could do something different with the blocks like set them up like dominoes and knock them over on purpose. But you know what no matter what I decide, they are just blocks if they knock over I can just start over or if I am tired of blocks I can clean up move on to another activity.

Repeat with coloring (pick the wrong color, color outside the lines) and talking through your options....putting together puzzles, etc.

Great advice with concrete examples. Thank you!

Thank you for these great suggestions! I just went on Amazon and ordered the books you recommended and I will let my DS5 pick out his own bop bag. Great ideas. So grateful for them!

Been there, still there at times. DS is now 7, it's getting much better than it was at 5 or 6. We try to talk about the situation later, when things are calmer... tying in that it is normal to make mistakes, using examples from our own growing-up or even grownup lives, sharing something that he could not do at one point but later learned, etc.

It has also been helpful to share stories about how famous people tried, failed, tried, failed before they succeeded. We talk about failure as part of growing and learning. With humor whenever possible!

Since part of it is you being "better" than him, it might be that he wants you to watch or just be near him more than he wants you to do the same thing. Totally a guess, but it might remove one of the points of frustration.

Dear ConnectingDots,

I came to that realization afterwards and realized that next time, I would let him draw first or take his lead and watch him like you suggested so he feels like he's getting my full attention. That way, he won't feel like it's a competition.

I wish I had thought of that earlier. Well..I am learning as I go along. This parenting thing is definitely a learning experience in itself.

Thanks for the feedback!

I wish I could remember the author/visual of this simple idea-- it worked better for my seven year old than anything else we tried.

The premise-- a pyramid (probably the best visual), divided into three parts.

The first part (bottom) is labeled something like "beginning," the middle "learning," and the top "mastery." Checkmarks in each part represent the number of mistakes-- a lot for beginner, some for learning, and few or none for mastery.

My son could visually see when we were starting something new. He would note that a lot of mistakes are expected in the beginning, some while we learn, and few/none once a topic is mastered and we're ready to move on.

It's not my idea- but it works well for us.

It took me a few tries to figure out that what I did easily, DS then thought he couldn't do. You will learn as you go, certainly! BTW, our younger son doesn't appear to have the same perfectionist tendencies. Our fingers are crossed. :-)

One thing we try to do is allow DD to see us struggle with new skills and tasks. This is interesting because at our age there's a tendency not to do as much new stuff. We've got our skills, learned and built up over the course of decades, and we stick to them. So it's also a call to us to branch out and not forget how to be new at something.

When we do explore new things, we give her insight into time investment and our failures and issues. For example, I've been experimenting with gluten free baking and make some pretty inedible mistakes. I make sure she sees me going through the process of accepting that I'm not perfect, learning from the results, trying again next time, and attempting to keep a good attitude. Ditto with a career certification I've been working toward.

DH was learning some new software and he made a point of mentioning the hours he spent in his office getting up to speed and how frustrating it can be when he can't make it do what he wants.

Now that DD is older, this has taken on a social dimension. When she makes a faux pas or does something wrong, her first question to us is usually "have you ever done that?" We make a point of answering honestly, coming up with times in our own lives that we spoke without thinking and had to deal with the fallout or made bad choices and had to live with the consequences.

Stories of famous people and their failures are great, but parents are the famous people in their kids lives.