Name: Spreading the Feast Gathering
Start: 2025-07-11T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-07-12T23:59:59-05:00
Location: LaGrange, KY

Tagged: habit formation, perfectionist

This topic has 12 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 4 months ago by Wings2fly.

Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)

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November 11, 2010 at 6:11 am
EMD
Member
I am back again. I feel like I’ve asked something similar to this but am still struggling. 🙁 My oldest daughter is 5. She is such a perfectionist that, sometimes, if she can’t do something perfectly according to her standards, she won’t even try. I tell her all I want her to do is to try and that home is a safe place to try things and make mistakes, etc. It falls on deaf ears. Do kids grow out of this? I am not sure what to do. Unfortunately, she is like me since I tend to be a perfectionist, but as an adult, I am able to keep my AR-ness under control and not require that others conform to my standards (ie: making the bed perfectly). Do you think it’s cruel of me to leave her be to her whining and not help her when I know that she’s capable of doing a task that either I asked her to do or that she wants to do …. even if she asks politely? Should i just let natural consequences take effect?
Today, after our nature walk, she wanted to draw a ladybug but wanted me to draw it for her. I did help her with a few things as she held her pencil, but once I stopped, she wouldn’t finish the drawing, complaining that she couldn’t draw circles, etc. So I let her be and explained why and she kept complaining but I didn’t give in. or she makes her bed and I help tuck in a few pieces and left a little part untucked, so there was a wrinkle. It’s neat but she wants me to come back and tuck in that last bit for her so it can be perfect (which I don’t do). Am I being insensitive to her age level?
November 11, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Crystal Wagner
Participant
My daughter is 6. This describes her to a tee. Our year last year sounded just like you. As you have described, I have helped her some but mostly let it be the best she can do. And I make sure to point out when something that I do (or daddy or a grandparent) that is not perfect, but is good enough. And we also talked about “working for the Lord.” (The scripture reference escapes me at the moment.) This year is much better. We are still dealing with perfection issues, but it seems much more manageable now. I would love to hear other’s perspectives, but in our case it is her personality and the way God made her but we are both learning to deal with it more effectively.
November 11, 2010 at 1:19 pm
lakrueger
Member
Our son will be 12 in a couple of weeks and we still deal with this, but not to the degree that we used to. When he was 3 he would straighten the stacks of papers on my desk, he wouldn’t eat a cookie if it was broken because it wasn’t perfect, etc. The difficult part of it for me was that I’m that way so I really didn’t know how to help him until after much prayer. The Lord had me purposely point out my faults and imperfections to him to show him that noone is perfect. That was a challenge for me, but it helped both of us! He still wants to do things perfectly, but knows that that isn’t realistic. He still gets frozen by it sometimes, but we just encourage him to move forward, do his best and that that’s good enough. It’s a daily challenge but it’s very important to let them know that perfection is absolutely unattainable. Otherwise they will be paralyzed by it for the rest of their lives.
Linda
November 12, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Tanya
Participant
My oldest (almost 10 yo daughter) is very much like this. She would always be so hard on herself when it wasn’t perfect, or when the picture drawn wasn’t the same as what was in her head, etc. At this point, we will have discussions on how God has given her wonderful talents of being responsible, orderly, seeing what needs to be done, etc. but with every talent comes a weakness. In her case the weakness is not being content with her abilities, being overly-controlling, etc. It is something that we pray about together and discuss and I foresee years of reminders ahead.
When she was younger, it was very difficult – she has come a long way! One thing that I did repeatedly (and sometimes still do) is before she started something, let’s say a drawing, I would say something like, “Now remember, we are just learning, so it might not be perfect. That’s okay. What’s important is that we do our best and we have a good attitude. I would rather have imperfect work with a good attitude, than perfect work with a bad one.” Basically, I would give her permission to “fail” in the task before we even got started so that she could see her abilities within some sort of perspective and understand that her character and growth were more important.
I don’t know if all of that makes sense. Hope some of it helps,
Tanya
January 28, 2011 at 6:29 pm
ResasPieces
Participant
I purposely registered on here today to ask the very same thing!! (I’ve lurked on the forums a long time 🙂 )
My daughter is 7 almost 8 and UGH! I feel like math is about to swallow her whole as she freezes with every new concept…OR new way of doing an old concept. So that being said, addition facts over 10 and subtraction have her bogged down. And instead of asking for a different way to explain it, she starts to cry, “humphs!” with a bad attitude and then asks me if I can just do it for her! I don’t know what to do…she’s a very intelligent girl, but has unwritten levels acceptable acheivement or something in her head!
Now, the kicker is that I can take about 15-20 minutes of it (while breathing very deeply) and then I tend to lose it and ask her to leave until she has a better attitude. Today that actually meant me shouting for her to stop being so disrespectful (uh, log in own eye??)! I just feel like my heart is all wadded up! Oh, no, and now I’ve got tears. Sigh.
Thank you for pointing me to the Lord and much prayer as surely that is the right direction. Meanwhile, if anyone else has “perfectionistic people” advice, please chime in!! BTW, we did the same things as described above with making the bed “AAACK! A wrinkle!!!” (now she’s fine with a quilt pulled over messy sheets…pshew!) and cutting with scissors at age 3-5 — couldn’t follow the lines so she’d give up. Finally made her practice every day on construction paper withOUT lines.
Blessings,
Resa

January 28, 2011 at 8:47 pm
suzukimom
Participant
Had similar issues with my son when he was younger – and he seems to have grown out of it.
Advice…
Praise trying – not the results. ie – “You worked really hard on that picture”, instead of “wow, that is a great picture”.
Show and take your own mistakes well. “oh look, I made a mistake on my knitting. I’ll just have to undo it to that point, and try again…” or “I made a mistake here – but it isn’t noticable when you look at the whole sweater…”
When they are saying they can’t do something that you know they can… don’t tell them that they can… to the perfectionist child that ups the anxiety… makes them feel like you expect them to be able to do it… perfectly! so with them saying “I can’t play this song” (even though they have before…) – don’t say “Yes you can, you played it before…” or anything like that. Instead say “Yes, that song can be a little tricky, but all I am asking is that you try”
For learning something, don’t give them a time frame to learn it… again, they are usually so scared of failure that they won’t try.
(My son spent a YEAR in suzuki violin lessons, refusing to play the violin with fingers, or try anything new… it was a long, hard time… and I really had to learn how to deal with the perfectionist child…   but I can’t think of anything that he has done this with for a long time. So although it was a long, frustrating, difficult year that often had me in tears – it was worth it!)
January 28, 2011 at 10:01 pm
ResasPieces
Participant
Ah-ha! Suzukimom the “yes you can, you’ve done all this before” no-no phrase will help. I say that all the time to her when reviewing concepts and it hadn’t dawned on me that that would make her even more anxious. I will have to make myself some notes of encouraging phrases to keep on my lips!
Thanks! ~Resa
January 28, 2011 at 10:11 pm
suzukimom
Participant
yes – I said that type of phrase a lot until I learned from someone else not to…
“you CAN, play with fingers… you used fingers at group class…” – never got him to try to play with fingers… would just make him more determined not to. It wasn’t until it was pointed out that that confirmed that I expected him to be able to play it (properly) and that I’d be disappointed if he didn’t….
the “I know it is trickier [note I don’t say HARD] to play with fingers… I just want you to try”
btw – one of our motto’s in our house (that I made up) is “Practice makes Hard things easy” – that is my answer to “it is too hard!” and our curren’t violin teacher has an answer for when he (and a few kids in group class) would start saying they are tired… “First you get tired, then you get strong”…. and sometimes she would answer with “Good, you must be about to get stronger”….
It did take a while for the change in what I said to make a difference – but as I said, now that he is 7 (3 to 4 years later) – this problem really doesn’t seem to happen anymore for us.
There has been a study, which I don’t have any info on (lol) that students that have been praised on working hard, trying hard, etc do better overall than ones that have been praised for results. They are more willing to try with challenging tests or puzzles.
January 29, 2011 at 2:27 am
Sonya Shafer
Moderator
I’m curious whether that magic three-letter word would be helpful to a perfectionistic child or up the anxiety level. You know the word I’m talking about, right? “Yet.” A wise mom once told me that whenever my child says an “I can’t” statement, teach her to put “yet” at the end.
So do you think that would relieve some of the perceived expectation or add to it? I could almost see it going either way, really.
January 29, 2011 at 2:30 am
suzukimom
Participant
Hm, that is an interesting question Sonya…
I could see it going either way – and it might depend on the child which way it would go. I don’t think it is much different to my response to “It is too hard” (“practice makes hard things easy…”)…

February 3, 2011 at 12:40 am
ResasPieces
Participant
Sonya…I didn’t know the magic word! I will use it and see what happens over time. Thank you both for your ideas…I’m writing them down in my own notes! Truly, it’s just a blessing to be able to come here and find others in the same boat!
February 3, 2011 at 12:57 am
my3boys
Participant
I have a perfectionist child myself and I will use both suggestions and see what happens over time. The thing is, with my child anyway, is that his tendencies are unpredictable. He actually makes me crazy, at times:)
I have begun to use the “Yes, that song (or whatever) can be a little tricky, but all I’m asking is that you try,” phrase and that seems to work so far. My son can not take wordy phrases or cliches…they either don’t make sense to him, literally, or he insists on understanding them and we get into it while I’m trying to explain it. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
He plays violin and I’ve been using that phrase and it has helped both of us.   Oh, and during our math lesson today I used it again and it made the event go by much smoother. I pray alot, too, and that helps.
February 4, 2011 at 6:29 am
Wings2fly
Participant
This was great reading all of your comments. I also have somewhat of a perfectionist 6 year old boy.  He loves to draw. I wrote down a few of your sayings, although I have told him before that “Practice makes perfect”. Also if he messes up and is about to cry, I ask him if it is okay for mommy to try to fix it. We can get creative sometimes fixing our mistakes to make it “look” like the artist (in their creative moment) meant to make it look like that. Then he is once again proud of his finished work. I tell him that we all make mistakes, but we can do our best at fixing the mistakes we make.
Also, starting with easier tasks and building up to more demanding tasks builds their inner confidence. I am reminded of the Kumon books for preschoolers here. My 4 yr. old uses them for cutting and pasting.
I used to be much more of a perfectionist and have grown out of it, mostly (especially after having kids). As a child, I used to have to have the bed made perfectly with no wrinkles, but now the bed is lucky if it gets made at all!