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My son Kai recently turned 4. He is perfectionistic and has a "don't tell me unless I ask" kind of attitude, which I try to respect where appropriate. However, we are currently experiencing a mini-crisis and I'm not sure how best to help him...

He's being extremely hard on himself (slapping his head/crying/saying he must be SO stupid etc) because he can't read/spell a word or his letter forms aren't right. This behavior and attitude is not modeled at home - we've tried very hard on every level not to exacerbate the perfectionism, and he'd made great progress til now. As for his sudden desire to "know" how to do it correctly (presumably without practice?) - I can only speculate that he's reached the point where his sight words/guessing/intuition maybe aren't cutting it, due to the increasing complexity of his interests.

Bottom line is, Kai's so secretive about this we have little idea where to begin helping and he's so adamant about no intervention - What do we do? I'm hopeful this post has made some sense and that perhaps someone will have some suggestions for us. BTW - whilst this is my first foray into the forum as a user, consider me a thankful, long time visitor to this wonderful site!

-Kory

Awww.

Is he in preschool? Can you give a bit more background on when this is happening (i.e., is he making up projects for himself or is he working on something someone else has asked him to do)?

Could you maybe talk with him a little bit in general terms about how parents are around to help their children when they need it and can teach them things when the children would like to learn something? Maybe give examples that would be relevant to him, but not make any explicit offers to help. Maybe even make the examples about all sorts of things, academic and not, both past (e.g., helped him learn to walk) and future (e.g., can help you answer questions about words he doesn't know). Maybe even put in some reassurances that kids aren't supposed to know everything already and that no one, child or adult, knows everything. This would put it out there that you're available for help if he wants it, but keeps it in his control, which seems to be what he likes.

I feel for you. Sometimes our little ones don't like to let on that they don't know everything. It makes them feel vulnerable and incompetent. I was a child just like that, so I get it, I think.

DS6 had a slight issue with this as well. He would crumple up paper left and right if he couldn't get it right. For us, we decided to tackle the perfectionism in him by putting him in situations where he wouldn't be right or the best (baseball). And we've shown him examples, especially with the latter, of people who didn't get it right every time. This helped him tremendously. We also, when correcting each other, emphasize how even Mom & Dad are wrong sometimes. It has helped tremendously, though we still have nervous breakdowns from time to time. Good Luck!

Thanks for the responses!

no5no5: Kai's not having meltdowns at Preschool about this. This is possibly because they're only working on learning the alphabet, recognizing (only) their names in print and starting to write their names. He's obviously at least a little beyond that stage, and is probably quite confident doing the Preschool's activities.

The issues are all arising here at home, throughout the day at random intervals. He chooses how he'll fill in his time and that seems to be part of the problem. Yesterday after hearing a family member was sick, he set about making a card. He drew a great picture of an Autobot on the front, then wrote "Get wel soon, lov Kai". After staring at it for 5 minutes, he totally destroyed it. According to him, there was something wrong with the words but he couldn't work out what, rendering the card useless.

The biggest recurring trigger is however, instructions. If there's any sort of diagram, he can pretty much do it but when there's only text - BIG problem. At the moment, he's fixated on creating an online character for a game he likes to play (age range stated as 7-10yrs). It's positively killing him

mnmom23: I agree with your approach. Perhaps we need to focus more on previous milestones or made-up "what if" type scenarios (away from today's issues) to reinforce that asking for help is not a bad thing.

JJsMom: Along the lines of your experience, we thought soccer might be fun for him as he loves to play at home. Unfortunately, the closest Kai would go to the playing field was the gate outside the grounds! Still working on trying to find something he'll at least have a go at.

Thanks again for your replies, and if anything else comes to mind, I'm all ears.

Sometimes a school experience in which one is the only person not having to work while everyone else does have to work is enough to plant the seeds of perfectionism. It could also be the case that teachers are praising him there, which would only make matters worse.

I know you said that you've been modeling a better attitude, but perhaps a direct talk with him might really help. I've talked to DD about why some things are easier for her than for other people, and some things are easier for other people than for her, and why I'm always happy when things aren't easy for me ("Yay, a challenge!!!"), and I think she really got it. You could also talk to him about instructions and how we don't have to follow them if we don't want to. (Once I told DD that, she pretty much never attempted to follow instructions again. )

That card sounds so lovely I'm sure it must have broken your heart. What did you say to him, if anything?

Welcome! This all sounds so familiar. DS6 had perfectionism issues showing up very early too. The writing was a big problem. If I remember correctly, he was writing out letters when he was 2, and excited about it. Then, when he got a bit older he started realizing that things weren't coming out how he wanted them. I remember him going back to drawings and painstakingly closing all the shapes if there was a little gap. He soon hated drawing and writing, and we decided that we wouldn't force the issue. He went into kindergarten not knowing how to write or spell, but reading at very high levels. Good news -he learned to write and spell in kindergarten, and doesn't seem to have any perfectionism issues related to writing. And he's been drawing very detailed diagrams of the characters from his computer games. For us, it just took a break and time.

It sounds like your DS wants so badly to write though. Do you think it might help if you let him do a bit of keyboarding and show him the spellchecker? I know that I've heard some say that they later regret showing their kids the spellchecker, but just a thought.

We started piano lessons as a way to combat perfectionism too. DS was 5 when he started, but I know others who have started at 4. DS recently had a recital, and he's come such a long way due to practicing, that I am hopeful he's learning that some things just take practice.

Best of luck!

sorry, no real advice, just wanted to let you know that my DD4 is similar so I just don't push or initiate things or try to instruct. My DD would smash a sculpture that wasn't "perfect" or scribble over letters that don't look right to her, but won't allow me to show her how to do it and doesn't want to practice. Maybe she is mad because she learned so many things with one exposure whereas it takes more practice to make "perfect" letters. Sorry, no real advice here, just empathy.

The Preschool does have an advertised policy of "praising effort, without gender bias". Your guess is as good as mine as to whether this policy is adhered to by all teachers, parents etc in the class environment. Regarding working v. cruising, I have started wondering if the repetition of these "easy" tasks has reignited the perfectionism. Perhaps naively, we were excited that they'd finally started some reading and writing activities. We thought it'd give him an opportunity to be less self-conscious as he'd see what other children can/can't do. If I'm honest though, he's never cared much for kids his age so the latter was probably just wishful thinking on my part!

Seeing it was such a thoughtful idea, I'd actually sat down beside him to make a card too. He'd been happily giving me tips as he worked on his, until the meltdown. While he tore his beautiful artwork up and stormed off, I just kept coloring. I gave him a couple of minutes on his own to calm down, then casually asked if he was ready to put his card in the envelope. Naturally, he said that the card was ruined and Grampa wouldn't want it but I started putting the crumpled little shreds in the envelope anyway. When Kai asked why, I said Grampa would be so thrilled that we'd tried hard to make something for him, he'd just think it was a tricky puzzle. Kai, realizing then that his work was being posted anyway, asked if I could wait a little longer for him to re-draw the Autobot to help Grampa with his "puzzle." Voila, happy child again.

I'm sure there's better techniques out there, but this approach of 'different, not wrong' actually helped Kai over his refusal to draw. We now have 3 or 4 folders full of characters he's drawn - if the outcome is different to that which he anticipated, it gets filed (not shredded) as a new design

This is the bit that I'm finding trickiest. Your DS was obviously able to read. I'm not sure if Kai can or whether he's just memorized words he needs to get by, and without sitting down and quizzing him, how will I know? He's far more comfortable on the computer than with pen and paper but again, is this something I should encourage given that he does seem to want to write?

I guess what I'm wondering is, would there be any benefit in setting aside time each day for a structured practice session for the reading and writing? Given his attitude though, I'd most likely have a battle on my hands. ((waving to you, Twinkle Toes!))

On a happy note - Kai told me that earlier in the week, he lost his running race at Preschool. He said that not only had he lost, he actually came last overall because he fell. When I asked how he felt about that, he smiled and said "I just thought about that day you fell in the puddle at the park and had to walk home covered in mud. Sometimes things just don't go our way, hey?" Wise words

That's wonderful thinking on your part. Your a great Mom!