> Ok I understand that he is bored, he knows all the anwers.Why not get it over with and do it?
I used to say the same to our son. Then in time, it hit me that if I went somewhere every day and was asked to do elementary (for me) things each and every day, I'd finally pitch a fit, too. Picture YOURSELF being sent back to K and being asked to write the way Chris does and create art that looks like Chris's.
Have you given any thought to homeschooling? I am a HUGE advocate of this method no matter what the child's IQ, but especially in cases where a kid is in school and not learning nor having fun. My guess is your kid hasn't murdered anyone or committed any other felonies, so I don't think he should be forced to be in an institution he doesn't wish to be in, saying there is another option (and perhaps there isn't as I don't know your situation).
And if he stays at this school, might I suggest taking in a Picasso from his cubic period and showing it to the teacher and asking if it looks like the art Chris is producing. Odds are most teachers before Picasso's work became famous would have been horrified at such work...what a fragmented mind, this child must be sent for counseling, blah, blah, blah. Then ask her if Stephen King and JK Rowlings have the same style. Note that authors all have their own style, just as all artists who actually make a name for themselves do, and to try to mimic anyone else's work will make you but one thing - a copier. We have Xerox machines for that.
As for perfectionism, I first spotted this in our son when he was learning to write...he would make a mistake and keep erasing and erasing and I took the paper and crumbled it up and threw it in the trash.
Call me Mommy Dearest, but I said to him, "Look, with all the time you've spent trying to make something PERFECT, you could have produced a number of things that would have been good enough and you will find that in most, but not all, things in life, good enough is by definition good enough and the more good you have, the better, and you'll have less good if you concentrate on perfection. The thing you need to develop is the skill in deciding whether something truly deserves perfection or if a few flaws will do just fine. When your mom tosses your paper in the trash for spending too much time trying to be perfect, it's a sign that you had an error in judgment that time. But thankfully, there is always next time." I never had to throw a paper in the trash again, and his work went on to be "perfectly" fine (at 13, he graduated from college with two degrees; he never got anything less than an A in any class involving writing).
Perfectionism is a dangerous thing, as people can feel they are worthless (especially during the teen years, it seems) if they feel they aren't measuring up to expectations, their own or those of others, and some resort to drastic measures which can't be reversed. A guy I dated while in college (he was a graduate student) stole cyanide from the lab and killed himself and to this day, my guess is that it was for fear of getting a B in one of his classes (others might guess it was me, but I had only dated him a few times and our first date was only 3 weeks prior to his death and I doubt I am quite that deadly...it's not like I ever crumbled any of this guy's papers and threw them in the trash!). I've never even told our son to do the "best he can do" as frankly, I doubt he'll often need to do that and also that he'll be more productive *and* happier if he does a bunch of things well rather than try to do one thing eminently, though we do know eminent people who do many things well and if people have the drive for that, more power to them, so long as they stay mentally stable. Despite my raising our son this way, he has a mind of his own and still aspires to someday do something eminently well, but hopefully, he'll cut himself some slack if he wakes up someday and realizes the odds are greatly stacked against him (including my having parents who don't care if he ever become eminent).
Good luck to you and your son, whatever you do.
