Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Beginnings of perfectionism?

I'm mostly a lurker here, but I'd like to pick your brains about something new with DS. He's 20 months old, so obviously I don't "know for sure" if he's GT, but he certainly seems to be, based on parental instinct and a look at the Ruf book.

In the last month or so, since we got him an easel at home, he's gotten really excited about painting. And I was intrigued that he was painting "things" - at least, according to him he was. To me, it looked like typical toddler abstract experimentation, but he would usually point to certain lines or dots and tell me what they were (90% of the time, it would be a big bold vertical line down the middle that he'd call a "rocketship", but occasionally other things, including a memorable volcano with "hot hot hot lava").

However, this past week he gets really excited about painting as usual, but then only puts a dot or two on the page before thrusting the brush at me and commanding me to paint a "purple rocketship" or "red house" or whatever. It seems like he's no longer satisfied with his own efforts when I can do a (very marginally! I'm no artist!) more accurate rendition. I've been trying to encourage him to carry on himself, but not much luck. Should I just cover the room in dropsheets (he's not yet mastered the rule of keeping the paint on the paper and not all over the furniture, etc) and back off, or should I paint things for him when he asks?

Hi! Glad you're here!

It could be perfectionism. But sometimes kids that age want to learn from you how you make things. DS7 used to ask us to draw trucks, so sometimes we did. As long as he was watching what I did, I figured he was getting something out of it. Pretty soon, he was drawing trucks better than I did. (At 2! No joke! Of course, I'm no artist...)

Maybe you can try taking turns? You paint something he asks you to make, then you ask him to paint something? Talk about what you're doing: "Now I'll make the roof. What shape should it be? Rounded or pointy?" That sort of thing.

And sometimes say, "No, I'm not painting today. It's your day to paint" or something like that. That way you're not a crutch for him. Mixing it up is good, I think.

FWIW...

We had a similar issue with trains at that age. I learned to draw trains....

Sometimes, we drew what he asked. Other times, we'd paint a line and then he'd paint a line and go from there. We also just said no, I want to see your paintings sometimes. The alternating lines seemed to help. It also helped that my lines weren't any better than his usually. Neither one of us is an artist

Part of it could be that he sees a picture in his head much more clearly than he can reproduce it. It is a bit like early reading. He could read the same things, I jsut coudl do it faster....

Wow, memory lane. I drew more Thomas the Train's, then I ever thought I could. We did take turns though. The interaction between us was the important part for me.

Perfectionism was a huge issue for us with DS6 when he was that age. We did the same thing, alternated helping, drawing or taking no role at all. At 22mos. he discovered writing the alphabet and all drawing went out the window for awhile while he learned how to write. Once he came back around to pictures, it wasn't such an issue.

I had this issue with DD3. Actually, I still have this problem. She does this with drawing, coloring and writing. For the longest time, she would pull out her crayons and coloring books, get all situated to color and then tell me to color instead. The same with drawing and writing letters. I think she wants to see me do these things so she can emulate me, and she will not attempt it herself until she knows she can do it darn-near perfect. It's been frustrating because I can tell she wants to start writing letters, but she gets real mad and tells me to do it. I think her brain is ahead of her fine motor skills at this point and I'll be happy when the two sync up together.

One way we can sometimes get her to draw or write on her own is to ask if Mr. Hand can do it. Yes, DD3 has a very rich imagination and if we talk directly to her hand as Mr. Hand, sometimes she will either forget it's her actually doing it or maybe she feels she can place the blame on Mr. Hand if she can't do it perfectly. Complicated creatures these children.

DS5 was exactly like that too. He always wanted us to draw for him and didn't want to alternate with us, either. Eventually (when he was a little older) he started getting really upset when we didn't draw something the way he wanted it -- the beginning of the end of us drawing for him! Now he does his own drawing and loves it (preschool has been a big help with that), though he isn't too thrilled with writing. I don't know yet if he will be a perfectionist with other things. I told him that his letters won't look like ours until he gets older and his wrist bones finish developing... he just stared at me and then said "Oh, OK." lol. It did seem to help a little bit.

Brilliant!

To the OP... your little one sounds amazing!