Hmmmm...
I was a kid like this. Things I didn't possess a mindset of "ownership/mastery" of, I could take criticism and loss quite well with.
Those areas where I had personal investment into my self-image as a "good _______" though, I could NOT tolerate loss, because that threatened my (fragile) self-worth and self-image.
It's a perfectionism thing, basically, as well as a matter of asynchronous emotional development. After all, how many adults do you know that interpret one less-than-stellar performance as an indicator that they are "destined to fail at ____"?
But kids do. Bright kids who tend to be analytical in particular seem prone to this-- because they can't
ignore the "evidence" (the loss/critique) in front of them, and have to process it.
HG+ kids in particular have the problem that they-- rightly-- adopt a domain as part of their identities... but WRONGLY assume perfection is attainable in that domain via a fixed mindset.
Yes, it can get better-- but you have to tolerate a lot of
age-appropriate tantrums and sulks over the psychological hurts that setbacks deal out. You also have to budge that fixed mindset and nudge it toward a healthier growth mindset in the domains that he associates with his self-image.
LEARNING and BEING GOOD AT are not mutually exclusive categories, right? But it can feel that way to HG+ kids with extraordinary skills in a particular domain-- the "knowing" gets the attention, not the learning.
There was nothing that I loathed more than having a teacher tear into my writing in middle school. NOTHING. Sports? Meh. I hated private music lessons, too-- because all the focus was on my errors. It was awful to endure that when I was accustomed to accolades in that domain.
