Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School meltdowns due to perfectionism...

I'm looking for any advice. DS is 7 yo, in 2nd grade. Accelerated to 3rd grade for math and has some accommodations for his advanced reading level in ELA. He attends a gifted class for 30 minutes 2x/6 school days

He just got his first list of advanced spelling words. They were taken from the vocabulary list that the whole class is learning. Some examples: technique, specially, competitive, weeknight. Most of the words weren't too hard for DS, but the first three really intimidated him. Every time I sit him down to practice, he has a huge meltdown. "I can't do this, this is too hard," crying, hyperventilating, etc. When I get him to actually spell the words, he can get them right. I don't think they are TOO hard, but just harder than anything he's had in school so far.

Any advice to help him calm down and not freak out?
Are the words a little bit too hard? Yes, I want him to be challenged, but he's only in 2nd grade. I don't think he should have to work harder than the other kids. (i.e. if the other kids practice their spelling words 5-10 minutes a day, he shouldn't have to be practicing 20-30 minutes a day)

What do you think?
TIA

My DS7 has perfectionistic issues and problems with frustration tolerance (he's actually in process of an evaluation).
It's coincidental that you bring this up, my DH and I were talking about this issue last night. We have come to realize that any new, challenging task that comes DS's way will start with frustration.

Many people would say that if a child is frustrated, it means that the work is too hard/they're trying to tell you something. For many children this is probably the case. In our circumstance, it's often the frustration (not necessarily the task) that is the problem. We're teaching (with the help of a therapist) coping mechanisms so that DS can adaptively tell us that he's not ready/does not want to continue with a task-- and so that he can read his own body's signals that it's time to take a short break. If he can't read his body cues and use words, the frustration goes up and up until we're in a tantrum situation.

FWIW, we found that the amount of time spent on homework in second grade is a big factor. In our case, DS can handle about 20-30 total of homework several days a week or 15-20 minutes each night. 20-30 minutes on spelling alone seems excessive--especially as it is a task that frustrates your DS. I could see DS become highly frustrated if there wasn't a way to break that down. We have also found that 20 minutes of outdoor time, snack, then homework makes a world of difference.

Perhaps even something as simple as just rubbing his back and giving him a hug, may calm him down enough for you to reason with him and to prevent things from escalating.However, I think you need a longer term solution that gets the root of the problem. Hopefully, more people with experience dealing with this will chime in.

If he can approach his "challenge" homework with a learning goal instead of a performance goal perhaps that will help. You can even state this objective for him and see if it helps. Here is an article that discusses it https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=32124

I prefer to use this terminology instead of "fixed" versus "growth" mindset with kids.

Thank you! I'm also not sure if DS will need counselor and sooner rather than later. I agree, his frustration is borne out of "this isn't something I know automatically" rather than it actually being too difficult or frustrating. The problem is when he freaks out, he can't concentrate enough to actually study. Otherwise, he is a pretty calm and easy-going kid. That's why I'm unsure if counseling is needed at this point.

I'll check out that Stanford article, thanks.

I also had a thought that maybe I can give him a little warning, such as "in 30 minutes, after you have snack and jump on the trampoline, we are going to practice spelling." Just to give him a little more time to prepare emotionally?

--Siren

One of my dds was also prone to freaking out in frustration over any problem she didn't think she could do, although for her it happened most often with math. It is not easy to deal with - once she's upset, she's too upset to really come back around and work calmly, so for her, we just let her stop what she's doing and come back to it another day.

I may be old and grouchy, but to be honest, I can't see that being able to spell the level of words you've listed above (on a spelling test) is really necessary in 2nd grade, no matter how high a child's level of giftedness. If this were going on in my household, I probably would not make my child study the words if they were causing frustration. If the study session started out ok, I'd keep going for 5-10 minutes - but I'd stop there, and I'd stop on a dime if the frustration over spelling jumped back in. Unless he's in some type of situation where he has to make great grades to stay in a program, it just wouldn't be worth the hassle. I'd let my child focus on learning that's fun and in subjects he enjoys. Life is too short to have to spend 20-30 minutes studying spelling at home every night in early elementary!

polarbear

Of the four words that you listed, technique is the only one that gives me pause; the other three words would have fit in with what my kids were covering in their stand-alone pseudo-GT 2nd grade Reading/Language Arts, which typically worked about a year ahead. Whether he has to work harder than the other kids really depends on his spelling ability compared to the other kids' spelling abilities. In my opinion, even "practicing" 5-10 minutes a day seem a bit much, as I assume that the teacher assigns some spelling homework like alphabetical order and making sentences, which already reinforce those words. My kids never practiced spelling except on rare occasions with one or two words missed on the pre-test and there were always a fair number of classmates who also didn't need to study beyond the spelling assignments. To be honest, I am alarmed that practicing 20-30 minutes a day is even a possibility. I would tell him that you don't care how he does on the test as long as he just try and that you are limiting his practice to 10 minutes (or less) a day.

We have been working on getting used to the feeling of getting things wrong for a while with my DS6. He has some anxiety diagnoses, so we have been working with a psychologist and therapist for a while. We have used a range of techniques, from breathing exercises, "brain buttons," resetting, pushups and yoga poses. . . But we also emphasize how important it is to get things wrong, how much we can learn from making mistakes, and so forth. We will sometimes cheer at mistakes or do exercises where he is actively not supposed to do things perfectly, i.e., writing time where I don't want him to focus at all on spelling but just on ideas or volume.

Getting used to those feelings is important because I think a lot of the fervor of the meltdown is sourced from the anticipation of what DS expects the result of mistakes to be and not in any real experience (other than what he has self-imposed). The more time he spends with the feelings (in metered doses), the less power they can have to knock him out of control.

We've been told to think of it like getting into a pool. It's cold at first and uncomfortable, but if we jump right back out of the water because of the discomfort, the next time we try to get back in the pool, it will still feel cold and uncomfortable. So then we would spend the whole pool trip hopping in and out of the water and being cold. Alternatively, if we just hang out in the water for a few moments, we get used to the cold feeling, and soon we don't notice and then we are off swimming and having fun.

This only applies because DS naturally gets so upset at things that normally one wouldn't expect to be a big deal. I still try to avoid things that upset him or approaches that I suspect will not go over well when practical. For him, it's something that is going to happen until he gets tools to lessen it, lessen its impact, and steer his emotional responses. I don't know if it will help at all with your DS, but I can really relate to your observation that once he freaks out, it is hard to get anything else done.

BTW, we are home schooling and I let DS pick a few of his spelling words for each set, and he still cried when he missed *just* one word on the whole list, which was one of the ones he had picked in the first place. I just told him spelling quizzes used to make me cry, too .

The 20-30 minutes was an estimate. Since it was only the first week of the new words, I was caught off guard and really didn't practice very much with him. And the 20-30 minutes includes the time for the meltdown.

He's an excellent speller, but I think it's more a case of he simply memorizes the word after seeing it a few times. So the challenging words I think are good for him to work on skills like sounding things out or other devices to help him remember how to spell things. I also see this as a way for him to learn study skills and other strategies to approach learning something new/challenging. That's why I wanted him in gifted education in the first place.

But I agree, I don't think it should be more than 5-10 minutes a day. He gets his new list today, so I'm going to try some strategies to prevent the meltdown and help him practice a little each day. The other kids do worksheets in class, but those are using the words from the regular list, not the challenge words. For him I was thinking he could make his own flashcards maybe? Draw pictures on the front to help him practice?

Thanks again for the feedback, it's helpful to know I'm not alone. --S

I'm not familiar with this in the specific context of spelling words, but my DD9 has exhibited this same behavior over a wide range of other activities. The activity may be different, but the context is the same... DD is convinced that she absolutely can't do something DW and I are fully confident that she can.

Our standard response is to encourage DD that we know she can do it, offer our support in helping her overcome her current challenge, and refuse to get caught up her emotions when she's melting down. Then, once the results come in, we make sure to say, "See, toldya so." Having that foundation of past success, DD finds new confidence. And, having that foundation of her parents successfully predicting her results builds her confidence in our assessments for other activities in the future.

So, in other words, I'd keep doing what you're doing.

If you're looking for ways to make spelling practice more fun, DW used to write each word on two index cards, then play memory matching with DD. DD loved it, mostly because she trounced DW every time (games with me usually ended in a tie).