Ok, our scenario tonight is a typical one that occurs quite frequently with DS6 and it is driving me to the brink! He is such a perfectionist and I have NO clue how to help a 6 year old deal with it. Lately he has really been trying to do a lot more writing on his own - such things as making messages to hang on his door or writing notes and so has been asking for help with spelling words. I know with his dypraxia that spelling and writing is going to be a difficult road -but he is reading on a 5th grade level. We are convinced he learned to read by osmosis :-) He didn't learn phonetically - he just sees a word and learns it - so spelling is going to be a tough road. So, we really haven't done any pushing on writing and spelling. I went onto the elementary school's website and the first grade teachers had a spelling word list of words they work on for the year so he said it would be cool to put a group of words up on his door and practice them and when he learned those to put a new group up. I was game....first few weeks no problem....we set up his small trampoline and he would bounce and yell out each letter of the word and then yell the word....or while he is doing his get ready for bed routine, we would do various silly activities like spell a word over and over while he was brushing his teeth...his idea...and then at the end of the week, while we were doing various activities, I would yell out a word and he would spell it on a piece of paper for me...again, no problems....then tonight. He really wanted to do a few activities for his spelling words and then asked if he could write some of them down to put up some new ones...well he made a boo-boo on the word 'duck' and spelled 'duk'...I told him wow, how close he got and then said something like "one way I know to double check my words is to look at them after I write it and if it looks a little odd, then maybe I missed a letter or something. and then informed him that some words he will be able to sound out for spelling and others he will just have to learn by practice. " He said he knew it looked weird and then threw an absolute fit because he got it wrong...it was one of the first words in the 3 weeks we have done this that he got incorrect and he was beside himself. He had a full blown tantrum where he proceeded to rip himself up one side and down the other yelling, "I can't do this, I'm awful at this"....I was just so upset that i couldn't calm him down. And then it continued to escalate....
...he made an elaborate lego item that he spent like 45 minutes on tonight and he wouldn't tell me what it was. Then at bedtime, he informed me that it was a special "waker-upper" and that he planned on getting up at 6am to come "poke" me with his waker upper so that he had more hours in the day to play. I then informed him that he would be greeted with a very tired and very grumpy mommy and that 6am would not be a good time - how about 7:30 instead. He went into another crying fit, totally and completely over the top upset because his plans "never work out like I plan them to" and that the whole thing was "ruined" and that he would have to tear it all apart because the schedule was "programmed" into his tool. He finally calmed down after 15 minutes of just being heart broken to saying that he would have to "modify" it in the morning. ARGGGHHHH! Someone please tell me that this gets easier the older they get...I already have gray hairs!