I think there are a lot of different issues here:
- perfectionism vs. learning to be careful
- following directions vs. being in control
- learning tasks vs. mundane work
- age expectations vs. mental ability
First, you characterize her as being a perfectionist, and say that you'd like to help her get over that, but you also say that you'd like to teach her to be more careful. I'd respectfully suggest that these are contrary ideas at this point. To address the perfectionism, I'd suggest embracing the idea that it is okay to make mistakes, to not put forward your best effort all of the time, to do things wrong, etc. You can't really teach that at the same time that you're teaching her to go slowly and carefully so that she doesn't make mistakes.
Second, yes, of course, it is important for kids to learn to follow directions. And of course that will conflict with her very natural desire to be in control. Personally, I wouldn't want academics to be the battleground in a power struggle with a preschooler--it's an area in which she will always win. And like others have said, if she goes to school she will learn soon enough to follow directions.
Third, I think a lot of people believe that you must work through all the mundane details of something before you can really learn it. And perhaps that is true for some things, and some learning styles. But for most things that is simply not true. My kid
still does not know the proper names for several letters ("c" and "s") but that hasn't stopped her from reading beautifully. Am I worried that because she hasn't memorized the alphabet she will miss out on learning? Of course not. When she needs to know it, I've no doubt she will learn it easily enough. It's not true that she needs to learn those details now, and if I tried to pretend that it was, she'd see right through me.
Finally, I think you've got to remember just how young your child is. Her academic abilities may be years beyond her emotional age and her physical abilities. You can't expect her to sit still and pay attention and work hard and concentrate and cooperate and follow directions and be careful at her age for more than a minute or two, if she isn't interested. And a minute or two may be enough time for a child to work through a simple letter-recognition workbook page, but it isn't enough time for her to learn anything significant at the academic level she is at. So if you want to push academics at this age, you're either going to teach her well below her level (in which case she'll learn that academics are a waste of time) or you're both going to get frustrated by her perfectly age-appropriate inability to concentrate and work hard for long periods (in which case she'll only learn that there's something wrong with her--which there isn't).
Whew, that was long. I guess I feel pretty strongly about this topic.
