Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Tips for perfectionism

I know the idea of perfectionism and the GT kid has come up a lot on this board but more in a factual way. I was hoping someone had some tips on how to tackle it. My DD (34 mths) is clearly a perfectionist and I would love to start earlier rather than later in breaking this tendency. (If that is even possible.) I personally think that perfectionist are hardwired differently but I would like to work with her to limit some of it.

my 4yr old DD's perfectionism is pretty bad.....

mostly i just remind her often that no one is perfect and that nothing is perfect and it NEVER will be..

i tell her that if she keeps working at something she will get better/good at it so when she is feeling not good enough at something i just tell her she can keep practicing..i never use the saying "Practice makes perfect" though because that insinuates that a person can be PERFECT if they practice which would just make her act more crazy...

There is a great movie called "Meet the Robinsons" that my kids own and its about exetremely gifted child (i wont explain the whole thing) and there is a modo in this movie that says "keep moving forward" i use this in place of "practice makes perfect"!

i talk openly with her about it and her feelings of wanting perfection

This is a hard one. My DD5 is so bad with this that she won't pick up a story in the middle if interrupted, she insists on starting at the beginning again. She is a picky eater, picky about cleanliness, won't read out loud if she can't glance first to make sure she knows the words, etc.
I haven't figured it all out yet, but being patient, and talking to her about how the world isn't perfect does help.
I have a dent in my car. I pulled over one day and started pretend crying that I'd have to abandon the car because it wasn't perfect. She laughed and seemed to get my point.

Reading this book to my daughters helped encourage them to try new things.
When Lizzy Was Afraid Of Trying New Things (Fuzzy the Little Sheep) by Inger M. Maier
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591471710/ref=ox_ya_oh_product
Now they have a track record of things they were hesitant to try at first but turned out to be good experiences. I also talk to them about the importance of making mistakes in order to learn. I heap on the praise as they work through the frustration of making mistakes when learning something new.

I think perfectionists have a hard-wired temperament but you may be able to help her learn to channel it in positive ways instead of it controlling her in negative ways.

One of the things that seems to help DS5 is me not giving in to him "quitting" something...

In fact, just yesterday, we were playing hangman while DD3 was in ballet class, and during the last game, he kept getting so frustrated about not guessing the right letter each time. He kept saying "I can't do this. I can't guess the right letter. I don't know what it is", etc... Along with reminding him that the game isn't over until he either guesses it correctly or he is hanged, and letting him know that it's ok NOT to get it every single time and that some will be harder than others, I made him take time outs. These aren't actual real time outs, but they are moments, even if just a couple of seconds, for him to regroup his thoughts and with hangman specifically, focus on the letters he didn't guess yet versus the blanks that are remaining or how many body parts are now drawn. That may not make much sense, but perfectionists can get stuck on a negative aspect of something and almost hyperfocus on it. And while they may be perfectly capable of thinking outside the box or coming up with more than one solution to a problem in "normal" situations, being anxious about that one negative aspect and not being able to "escape" that feeling can cause real problems.

I refuse to allow either of my children to quit an activity just because they had a bad day - something my mom allowed me to do. And even to this day, I have to fully force myself not to just quit something due to a bad day or because I think it might be hard (a job, a team, school, a class, etc). DS plays baseball, and every season he plays, he knows he's not allowed to quit midseason. I also think that him being involved in something that he's not really "perfect" in helps... he's no where near the best kid on the team, which motivates him to try to get better, but it also gives him an idea that there will just be some people better at somethings than he is. For us, baseball (and Monster Trucks & NASCAR - his two other "loves") is perfect because even the big shots lose, or strike out, or don't get to play one day, etc...

That reminds of a time when my DD, who was either 5 or 6, decided to participate in a school fundraising run. The run was a mile long, and turned out to be much more than she anticipated. She got a side ache and was way, way, behind. In fact, everyone had kind of moved on by the time she approached the end of the course. We made her walk all the way to the finish line (we walked with her)and then to reinforce our message to her, we rented Cool Runnings that night (one of my FAVORITE movies both for enjoyability and for message--there is some unfortunate language and a big fight scene we could have done without at age 5, but no harm done ;)). Even though I felt kind of mean at the time, I've never regretted having her finish the course. And Cool Runnings continues to be a family fav!

I LOVE reading these ideas...my DS6 is a total perfectionist - it gets so bad for him that if he makes one teeny tiny mistake on something, he will crumple it up, throw it away and start over from scratch even if it means he had been working on the original item for half an hour. His perfectionism causes him to hestitate in jumping into something or trying something new because he won't do something unless he knows he can get it 100% correct.

I try SO hard to model when I make mistakes.Throughout the week I will make comments like, oopps, I put too much sugar in the recipe or ooppps, I made a boo-boo in my check book or whatever and then I will walk myself verbally through how I can fix the boo-boo. I am hoping that with modeling that it's not the end of the world if everything isn't 100% correct and the sky won't fall, he will see that it is okay to make mistakes....but some days it just drives me NUTS

I don't know if I have anything helpful or not, because DS6 is still a perfectionist and always will be, and so am I, but there are a few things I do to try and help.

I remind him over and over of things that he has gotten stuck on before and had to keep practicing and now does better. For example, most any of his Nintendo or PlayStation games were frustrating to him when he got them--now he's at the high levels. So I remind him that he didn't know how to do that game and now he plays it like a pro, and whatever he's trying to do will be the same once he gets the hang of it. Most of the time that will keep him going on something instead of giving up because he isn't perfect at it.

I remind him that the point of school/class/lessons is to be educated coming out, not going in. He gets so mad that he doesn't know something when he first starts on it, and just gives up. We've been having trials and tribulations on a free month's worth of Aleks. He wants me to show him how to do every problem on the assessment so that he won't miss any. I have to keep telling him that it needs to know what he doesn't know yet, so it can teach him.

It's so hard to raise a perfectionist, understanding from the bottom of my heart how he feels because I am the same way. I know how he feels, but I have no idea what to do about it. My mother was the best, but one thing she never managed was to stop me from being the way I am, and I can't seem to stop him from being the way he is either, even knowing how it hurts.

I'm interested in this too. DD is 2 and advanced for her age. She has been perfectionist since she learned to crawl. She used to crawl to the wall stickers I had put on her walls and she sat there always taking them out and then putting back in. She got furious if there was even the tiniest corner on that sticker that was not perfect. Took me a while to understand why she always got so upset while playing with the stickers.

Now she is two and she is constantly bothered that some letters are missing from the alphabet set that is on our fridge. She likes to organize the letters (she has her own weird way of doing that, not the normal order) and at some point starts complaining how some letter is missing. This morning it was X and obviously I have no idea where it is.

She also thinks she can or should be able to do everything. Now she thinks she can write and swim. Going to pool is a pain as she is so upset to us that we are not letting her swim alone.

She is very persistent so instead of giving up is something is not perfect she has hard time moving on before it is perfect.