There's a lot of good advice here. One thing that has worked for us include praising value where it exists, including in an imperfect product where your child has already noted an imperfection (I don't believe in glossing these over, and am always honest with my son, as I think over-praise is a particularly insulting form of coddling). Another thing is to help the child realize that the way most adults do things isn't perfect either. In a different thread, someone noted that their child was upset that the child's pictures didn't look like the parent's drawings-- but it is important to realize that 1) unless the parents are actual artists (or highly skilled in the particular area at issue), that's a false standard of excellence; and 2) excellence can occur in many forms, so the child may be developing a talent in a different direction, sort of like Jackson Pollock might have been interested in paint smearing at a young age but might not have cared much for representation, which could have easily been misinterpreted as being "less good" by someone. I think the thing is to encourage growth without necessarily channeling it in one specific direction.
I think perfectionism is largely learned by imitation, but the good thing is it can be unlearned too. Like, for instance, the spilled milk story above. Smart people tend to think critically and realize when something is subpar, and our kids pick up on it. Then, when our children are doing something like drawing, etc., they may see objectively that their products aren't as technically perfect as some others they've seen. It's due to an early development of perception that outstrips ability, which I see as similar in causation to the "problems" that happen when intellectual ability outstrips physical and social development, but kids are in with their normally developing age group.
Perhaps a good approach would be to think of activities that encourage prototyping at intermediate stages. You could try waiting until your child finishes something, then praising as appropriate and asking if it can be made even better, more exciting, if a new part could be added on, etc. But if your child is done, of course she's done.
One thing that's been discussed recently is drawing and writing story books, which is a great activity for any kid IMO. You could staple pages together, then have your kid write the loose first draft or outline of a story, then have her specifically arrange the bits of plot to conform to the number of pages, etc.
Any activity like that that takes multiple adjustments, changes, etc. is bound to decrease the bad parts of perfectionism-- but it will actually increase the good parts, since your child will be encouraged to always seek a better result. I encourage things like that with my son, and do my best to adopt a generally encouraging attitude by saying things such as "I like the direction in which you're taking this", etc.
Last edited by Iucounu; 06/19/10 08:55 AM.
