My four-year-old has always been very particular about how he wants things (toys need to be lined up just so, etc.). He is learning how to write his letters and numbers, and we are finding that his "particularity" has extended to this as well. He loves filling sheets and sheets of papers with numbers and words, but if the numbers/letters don't come out exactly how he wants, he gets so upset that he will melt down, throw a tantrum, throw his markers, or tear the paper.
We try to tell him that, "It's ok to make mistakes when you're learning. We're all trying our best. You will get better as you practice," that sort of thing. We try to tell him to take a break, or it's ok, you can start over again or just cross it out, or just try again. But in the moment, he is inconsolable. And honestly, it is a massive hassle. As happy as I am that he loves practicing his writing, these meltdowns almost make me not want to let him do it.
I understand that this perfectionism and the resulting tantrums can be associated with some developmental issues that we are already aware of and dealing with, so I don't need advice about that. I'm just wondering what other mamas of perfectionist children have found work for them to help their kids relax and/or move on when things don't come out the way they want? I don't want to tell him that it's always ok to make mistakes, because he is the type of kid who will twist it to his advantage when it comes to something he doesn't care as much about. But I do want him to see honest mistakes as learning opportunities, not tragedies.
There was a great song from Sesame Street about this that I used to sing with my daughter. You might be able to find the tune in the internet. The text is: "Whoops, I made a mistake, that's all. And making mistakes is never fun. You say 'Whoops, I made a mistake, that's all. And mistakes can happpen to anyone.'" It was a good distraction.
My daughter is 4 years old and also a perfectionist.
Rules we have:
1) If you do not want to take a break take a few deep breaths to calm down then try again. It is NOT ok to throw things, or destroy things this results in those items being taken away (and follow through). Something I always say is "mommy still makes mistakes & gets frustrated (sometimes I give an example, like how I burnt the chicken, how I learned from it and how I handled the situation), we learn from mistakes, keeping trying and do the best we can."
2) If you are too frustrated put away what you are doing and move onto something else, you can come back to it later. If you do not want to find something else to do and keep getting frustrated with current activity then you need to calm down in your room before returning to it.
After months, seriously like 8 months of doing the above my daughter has finally been able to handle frustrating situations calmer. Still get frustrated but she is learning how to handle it with calm reminders from me. In my daughter's preschool I see this happen all the time, and if you keep reminding them of the tools on how to handle a frustrating situation someday it will sink in.
my niece was exactly like your son. She is now 16yrs old and competing (and winning) National Aerobic dance competitions. I don't really have a clue (!) but I'd try encouraging your son to find his passion and if he loves what he is doing then his perfectionist streak will be to his advantage. (My niece has never changed. She get's up at 6am every day to make sure the homework she completed the night before is correct and will redo it if she thinks it isn't perfect ! You son may go far in life)
Another hint is to watch the behavior of others in the household who may be perfectionists (and who do not have other issues). If anyone else is a perfectionist or hard on themselves, then work to change those behaviors, and ease up on their pressure. Children, even natural perfectionists, will often be harder on themselves when that is modelled by those they love the most. If this is the case in your house, then 2 people benefit. :)
Dry erase! My 4 y.o. son gets mad when his letters aren't perfect, too. Not melt down, but definite shut down. :) Anyway, I didn't even know it was a big issue for him until we switched from his dry erase book to paper worksheets.
I got his book at Marshall's or Ross, purely by luck, but I've seen a variety of different sorts at different stores. Walmart, K-Mart, etc.
I'm not sure that they're ready to grasp the "honest mistakes as learning opportunities, not tragedies" lesson, yet. Just make it better for him for now.
Good luck!
I'll pray for you, lol! I know what you are going thru. My perfectionist is now 10 & has had me biting my nails for a long time. The very best thing you can do is NOT to give attention to the "undesirable behavior" & focus more on how he reacts when HE is proud of something he does. It's hard to do but as he gets older he will find other things that really, really, really bother him. The reason I say that is because it sounds like he is on the higher side of intellect so the oddest things will irritate him. An example would be like the way clothes feel on his skin and the crazy way he may respond to it. I am not saying to ignore him but don't let him know that your giving a second thought to how he is reacting when he is not pleased with himself. It probally is not an attention getter, but it could possibly turn into 1 so be cautious of that. Good Luck!
Great question, one I think many of us mothers of 4 year olds can totally identify with. They are so hard on themselves at this age, aren't they? They want to be able to do absolutely everything, and do it perfectly, yet their little minds just can't communicate how to do everything perfectly to their still somewhat uncoordinated bodies... it's definitely a quandry. And we've had the meltdowns over things being 'not perfect' also. Thanks for asking this. I hope you get some more responses, because I'm interested in reading them also.
So far, I've done basically the same thing you described... and it isn't really effective, is it? I just try to stay as matter-of-fact about it as I can, reassure my son that we all make mistakes, and no one does everything perfectly, and encourage him to try again, if he wants to. I do believe there is a component of development/maturity that will kick in, and hopefully lessen these kinds of frustrations, when at least their bodies are more capable of doing what their mind wants to do...
One thing that works for us is "modeling" reactions to mistakes. For example, when driving I frequently make wrong turns even though I have a GPS. When I do this, I make a point of laughing out loud and saying out loud what a silly thing I did making a wrong turn even with the GPS. My son now laughs with me about it. This works best when you truly do make a mistake, rather than making a mistake on purpose because kids will pick up on that.
Another thing is to acknowledge that you can see that he is frustrated (or whatever). Try to avoid labeling things as "mistakes" or saying that his letters are ok. To him they are not, so that is just making him more frustrated.
Did you even consider the possibilty that your son may be gifted? Perfectionism is a common trait of gifted people. There are TONS of articles/books written on the subject and how to help children (and adults) with this issue. Here are some sites where you can find articles:
http://www.sengifted.org/articles_index.shtml
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/
Let me know if you need specific suggestions on articles or books.
FINGER PAINT!!! My son has developmental issues as well as texture issues. He hates being sticky and things have to be done his way or he will also get very upset. It's not being a brat because I've said no to a toy at the store but when I call ice cream good instead of yummy he'll have a melt down saying 'It's not yummy it's tasty!!! We've found that if we give him things to do that he can't do 'perfectly' he is able to chill out a little bit. I give him play dough or model magic and have him make worms, snakes, and other easy stuff. I'll encourage him to make harder things that I can't actually identify and he seems to be able to let go of the perfectionism. Finger paint and painting with feet is really awesome. They can really let go of the ocd like stuff if you both sit down with paper and paint and you use your own finger to make a squiggly line across the paper. Ask him to make a crazy shape on his paper. 'Invent' new shapes or animals. All of this get's his imagination working. When kids who are perfectionists are able to let their creative side out of it's cage for a few minutes they find it's actually a lot of fun. We also dance in front of a mirror. My son will get into it and start wiggling all over the place. The thing is that with kids who have these issues aren't going to get over them because you tell them to. You can't 'discipline' them out of these behaviors. You must teach him how to deal with this kind of behavior. It isn't going to go away as he gets older so teach him how to use it to his advantage and prevent it from making him nuts when he can't get it exactly right. If you are already working with someone to manage the issues of the developmental problem you might talk to them about this too. Sometimes multiple things seemingly unrelated actually put the puzzle together and you realize you've been on the wrong track the whole while. I was perfectionist, dyslexic, and hyper active. I was extremely intelligent but nobody knew because I spelled everything wrong and talked non stop!! I'd bet your son is of above average intelligence and this is part of his brain dealing with that. Some of it he will out grow but if you can redirect it now you'll have less fits and a son who is really proud of himself.
I love Katie B's suggestions. The one other thing that we do with our perfectionist daughter (who's now 5.5 and getting better about this, which is nice) is reminder her that "this is supposed to be fun. If it's making you upset, it's not fun and we'll put it away and do something else." If she keeps being unreasonable, I calmly pack up whatever she's doing and "suggest" that she go to her room to calm down.
Finally, if she does throw stuff, etc she's responsible for picking it up. So now I can catch her before she does it (often) and remind her that if she throws her pencil/paper/etc because she's mad, she's going to have to pick it up. Doesn't always stop the tantrum, but does often stop the throwing.
Good luck. He will hopefully start to outgrow this soon.
