Does anyone have any ideas for dealing with perfectionism? My ds6 and I are really struggling (during homeschooling and just everyday parenting) with finding a good compromise between the activities/tasks being too easy ("boring") and too difficult. "I can't" seems to be the favorite phrase around here. "I can't" turns into "this is the stupidest thing I've ever done." That turns into, "I can't do anything right. I'm stupid!" I want to help him learn to cope, but he's never learned to work at anything. Even when we require him to continue with an activity or sport that he wants to give up on, he just ends up shutting down or even worse, melting down. This behavior is not only socially unacceptable, it doesn't lend itself to learning anything new. Not to mention, it makes for some REALLY long days.

Now, he picks things up through "osmosis" all the time, but anything that takes some effort or work sets him off. We have to deal with 5 meltdowns (which includes, crying, screaming, hitting himself in the head, slamming the bedroom door, kicking the door, maybe throwing a toy, yelling that I'm the "worst Mom in the world" or "I can't do anything.")before completing a lesson. After about 10 minutes he calms down and will often try again, only to be followed again by another meltdown, which may or may not be as extreme at the first.

He just doesn't seem to want to try at anything. Even when he's working on his own, he wants me right next to him the whole time. We are working on indpedence, and he's coming along. Way better than even 3 months ago.

Now there are days that he's "on" all day, and he does well. He enjoys the tasks, demonstrates good patience, and a is a sweet, kind little boy. But, the perfectionist tendencies and behaviors creep back in and are there more often than not.

I am really trying to find some good ways to let him know it's ok to make a mistake and that it takes work to master new skills. I applaud and praise hard work and tenacity rather than focusing on the end result. We joke about irradicating "I can't" from our vocabularies in our house. He laughs, but it's always his go-to word. Either that or "it's boring." We're going to have to wipe that one our of our dictionaries too!

Sorry to go on and on as usual! I appreciate any advice, tricks, tips you can offer. My ds is very visual so charts and rewards work really well with him. Can't figure out how to incorporate this into anything like that, though.

Thanks!
Jen