Copy work and a perfectionist child

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  • eawerner
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    DD5 has some perfectionist issues that I am starting to see come out. She wants to do everything ‘right’ and as nicely as I or dh does and is very upset when that doesn’t work out. We just started our 1st grade curricula and for copywork I gave her Gen 1:1. I explained that we were going to be practicing writing nice and neat, and that is was good to go extra slow and take her time to do her best for each letter. I said that it didn’t matter if she only got a word or two done in the 5 min. but to take her time. 5 min later she is finished but has her head down on the table and is crying. She looked back at her page and had realized that she made 3 of the letters that were supposed to be lowercase, upper, which is what she defaults too. She was very upset that it wasn’t her best work.

    I know that usually it’s recommended to have a student finish the passage and if you find any mistakes, they have to do it again, but I’m wondering if that kind of attitude will just crush her, where helping her to find and fix her mistakes will keep her from feeling like she failed at the lesson and prevent the ‘if I can’t do it perfect I shouldn’t bother trying’ type mentality.

    I am seeing this perfectionism in all her school subjects and other things as well. Advice in general on this issue would also be apprectiated but I am especially interested in copywork since it so emphasizes having to do it perfectly which can seem to cause too much stress for people with this issue.

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