When my DD4 was younger, I was great at not correcting her, praising her, and allowing her to color out of the lines metaphorically and literally. Now that she is four and in pre-K I can feel my competitiveness and perfectionism rearing its ugly head. I do not want to impose those traits of mine on her and yet, I see them slipping out in very small ways. I am feeling less tolerant of sloppy coloring, sloppy writing, or sloppy speaking or thinking. Most of the time I bite my tongue, but today I think I sunk to a mommy low moment saying that I thought she could do much better (on a project). She is also a perfectionist and I am wondering how best to manage my own perfectionism issues. I allow myself to be much "sloppier" than I once did. My posts have typos galore and I don't even bother to edit them etc. yet I worry the beast in me will rise up once my DD4 enters the world of school and competition. Does anyone else fight their own perfectionism and competitiveness and struggle to keep it from harming their child? I haven't felt those twinges until this year. So far, it isn't out of the cage yet, but once we are in the world of testing and grades, I hope I can say and do the right things if she performs below her ability. I am perfectly accepting that she can't do certain physical things and it doesn't bother me in the least. She is behind plenty of kids in terms of playground gymnastics, and I couldn't care less and I was a competitive gymnast. She can't dress herself that well either and I don't care, yet it does irritate me when she does things below her ability in her strength areas. Any advice? I don't like this trait in myself.
