Need help dealing with perfectionist child

howleyshell

I'm sure there are books on this but if anyone can share the cliff's notes I'd appreciate it.

He's 6.5.  He's a late summer birthday and we held him back so he's in kindergarten and doing awesome both academically and socially.   This is only an at home thing and usually only at the end of the day so it's likely exacerbated by being tired and hungry but still.....

When he's writing words and drawing pictures at home he will often become frustrated and crumple up the paper throwing it in the recycle and saying things like:

"I'm not talented at ANYTHING"  or "I hate this picture, I can't draw" etc etc etc.

 Where is all this self loathing coming from?  yikes!!!!  That's a lot of self esteem issue for such a young guy! 

He ends up quite dialed up, frustrated and crying.  He's not really in a good place to listen to me helping him calm down or problem solve once he's headed down this path.  

Advice?  Feedback?  Experiences? 

neverblushed

Both of my kids can at times display this type of perfectionism.  

I tried to talk about it with them when they were NOT working on homework.  When they actually were doing homework or drawing or anything that was likely to cause frustration, I just tried to be very careful about my comments, both positive and negative. 

My kids at ages 8 and 12 both still want to do well on stuff.  But they've both dialed back the anxiety and perfectionism they showed in their early school years.

It was as if at age 6, they expected that they would draw as well as the pictures they saw in books.  They just didn't have a realistic idea of what they could do.  As they matured, they realized that it was not realistic and became more satisfied with their own efforts.

KL777

I think this behavior is fairly common.  My DS does this too---more often than I would like.  He's just trying to do it right and he's still in the learning process.  I just talk calmy and redirect his actions to try again and show him where he did something else correct before.