Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Dealing with Perfectionism + Emotional Intensity

There is a book called "ISH" that I would highly recommend to all parents of young GTs. It's a fairly simple book that you can read with/to your kids. It made a huge difference to my son. It is basically about how perfect looks different to everyone.

It was about 8-10 dollars and well worth it.

bumping this up for that fabulous, fabulous list from Iucounu.

Something's come up.

Not a happy moment when your 13yo tells you that she "doesn't feel proud" about anything she accomplishes, because that might make someone ELSE feel inadequate or bad, and because in her mind, pride = arrogance.

This resonated:
Stoeber, J., Kempe, T., & Keogh, E....ndividual Differences, 44(7), 1506-1516.

Also true that this same 13yo has recently suggested that:

"Oh, wow-- this is hard" = "Something is wrong. I should stop." {sigh} So clearly, in addition to socially-prescribed perfectionism (as noted above), also significant self-oriented perfectionism.

I think what makes my DD an odd duck is a complete and total lack of other/outwardly-directed perfectionistic tendencies.

Timely topic for us. Thanks for the awesome list, Iucounu...I will be discussing some of these with my ds6.

We are stuggling with perfectionism/easily giving up here. It's come out in many situations lately. My ds6 attended a birthday party last weekend which was a combination rockwall climbing / rollerskating party. I knew we were in for a struggle. I watched a few of ds' friends struggling for very long periods of time to reach the top of the wall...falling off (hanging by ropes) and pushing themselves to swing and struggle to keep going. My ds did not have the confidence for this and easily dropped off once he got about ten feet up. Skating is rough...ds does not have great balance. Luckily, a few of ds' other friends were struggling (about half were great skaters and half were miserable)...but I felt so bad that ds had to skate holding his mom's hand at a birthday party. I suggested that we should enroll him into some skating lessons. You would have thought I suggested I scrape his eyeballs with a vegetable peeler.

Last night, ds asked if he could do a spelling test. He doesn't do these in kindergarten, but they give him a list of sight-words to work on each week ... and of course he's known these for years. He asked if he could spell them instead. Now he's never practiced spelling before (beyond journal writing at school), so I was really impressed that he was doing so well. But the moment he got to a word he didn't know, he pushed the paper away, refused to listen to his father or I and declared that the test was ruined. Same thing happened with a "mad math minute" test he insisted he take recently (doing additon/subtraction facts in one minute)...the moment he didn't pass it perfectly, he was devastated.

Last night, out of desperation, I suggested we start a "stick-to-it" jar where he could earn dimes when opportunities arise where he pushes through his feelings to quit. Since then, ds has been perseverating on this jar idea and turning what I hoped would be a positive thing into yet another feat of accomplishment.

Ugh...I am not, nor is my dh, highly critical people, and we never expect perfection from our kids. Though I can be perfectionistic in some areas, I have never suffered the way ds does. I'm an artist and do remember ripping up drawings I didn't feel were up to my standards as a youngster. My dh is a guy who sticks with something until he truly cannot take it any longer, so it's hard to see ds give up so easily.

I will keep trying the ideas I find on here.