Hello everyone,
I found this forum by accidentally googling "perfectionism meltdowns". And I have tears in my eyes as I'm reading your posts. Tears of relief. I cannot tell you how difficult it has been these past few years. DD is 5 and every day brings meltdowns due to anything and everything that isn't perfect - socks, blankets, the way she spells the letter "e", her chair at the dinner table. And like one of the moms mentioned, when DD is hungry it is 10 times worse, but she'll never ever say she's hungry. So, to JenSMP: thank you so much for mentioning that. I can't tell you how much it helps to hear this about another child.
DD won't even try to do something until she is sure she can do it perfectly. And we want to homeschool - how on earth am I going to handle that?
The good news is that after reading your posts and a few other sites, I now know that perfectionism is hereditary and I now know who is largely to blame - me. I never realized before just how much of a perfectionist I am. I think I've been able to avoid seeing it by pretending that being perfect didn't really matter.
So it looks like this will be a growing process for DD and I. Thank you so much for sharing and I hope you won't mind if I regularly join the discussion. I don't know if my daughter is actually gifted (although she is extremely intelligent and articulate), but you sound like a wonderful group of people whose support and understanding I could really use from time to time. Hopefully, I'll be able to reciprocate as well.
Warmly,
Rhonda
