Twinkle Toes, first off, I agree with Maryann when she says no matter how hard you try, you'll slip up from time to time and to not be too hard on yourself.
I too have strong perfectionist tendencies and see them in my dd, also 4. I have had to make a really conscious decision to let dd go and make mistakes (yesterday I had physically restrain myself from taking a sifter off her while we were baking because it was killing me watching her do it 'incorrectly' - is there even a correct way to sift???).
I find, and this may or may not be true for you, that my desire for her to perform at the level I know she can really fires up when I feel like I have something to prove. I have asked for dd to be entered in to first grade rather than kinder next year (our school year starts in February) and she stumbled on an easy word while reading a very short passage for the principal. I was infuriated. Those are the moments when I really have to keep myself in check because I know in my heart that that is not about her, that is about me. For me, that involves being really aware of the moment and my automatic internal responses and forcing myself to have a different outward response, especially when I know logically no other response was possible at that point in time (dd hates being asked to 'perform' and invariably fails to impress when she is).
When I do slip up, which I occasionally do, I apologise to her - regardless of the period of time that has lapsed, and explain why I am apologising. She seems to really appreciate that. I gave myself a pat on the back when the other day I suggested she could have improved something and she said "this is just for fun mum, you don't always have to do your best". And she was absolutely right. I well and truly stood corrected!
