Is it normal for 7 or 8 yr old to be a perfectionist?

[Anonymous]

When I say "perfectionist" I mean she gets SO upset when she gets one or two answers wrong on math or spelling quizzes/tests at home.... yet she is not a perfectionist about doing the work perfectly. She just has a tantrum when she gets things wrong. I try to tell her that it's ok to make a mistake and the important thing is to correct it, but she's lost in having a fit.

Is this common? When will she get over it?

[Anonymous]

Is she very competitive? Or maybe has self-esteem, entitlement or ego issues?

[Anonymous]

When you teach her how to constructively handle her emotions and behave in an appropriate manner to disappointing scenarios such as this.

Telling her that it's OK to make a mistake is only part of it. She still has to deal with her own disappointment. Acting out in this way, however, is not appropriate at her age.

[Anonymous]

Why are you giving her tests/quizes at home? Maybe she's just tired from the day's activities and less able to regulate her emotions.

[Anonymous]

She is given time to rest and have a snack after school, but then she HAS to do word study (part of which is spelling a list of words correctly). She also has to do adding/subtracting worksheets b/c she is working on mastering the basic facts. Other than these two things (which should take about 30 mins total), she has to do reading (which she loves to do).

Whether is is worksheets that her teacher gives out, spelling that her teacher requires or math worksheets that I give her, she has a hard time when she gets corrected. She does NOT want to be corrected.

[Anonymous]

I was absolutely a perfectionist at this age.

My mother still has a Christmas-paint-your-own-plate that I *designed* but then asked my teacher to redraw because I didn't like how it came out when I drew it!

If your DD is like me, she's very smart (ha! and modest!) but not yet very mature, so errors conflict with her self-perception. She doesn't see correction as an opportunity to learn, she sees it as criticism that directly challenges her self-worth.

She'll grow out of it. But in the meantime, keep reaffirming that she is still smart, and that practicing these things is the way to get even smarter.

[Anonymous]

Yes, just read something about it in Parents Magazine, in the 7-8 year-old part. It basically said to take every opportunity to point out to them that everyone makes mistakes and that it is participation and effort that are the most important.

[Anonymous]

Like one of the pp's I was like that as a kid, but I didn't really grow out of it. I really struggle with criticism and tend to take it very personally. I know better, and I can control my reactions, but internally I take any criticism very very hard.

I think part of this is just how I'm wired, but part was that I was definetly rewarded for being smart and getting things right, not necessarily based on how hard I tried or how much I improved.

I see this personality trait in one of my three kids, and I try hard to compliment hard work more than getting things right, but I'm not sure if there is something else I should be doing to help her not end up an emotional mess around criticism like her mom.

[Anonymous]

PP of the teacher-made-my-plate story:

I think it's really hard not to reinforce the cycle, because you are naturally proud when your kid is smart or talented or whatever. In my family, I was the smart sister (she was the outgoing/pretty one -- I know, cliche).

I was never going to get attention for being outgoing or pretty, so I did everything I could to spotlight my intelligence. And if I made a mistake, it wasn't just a bummer, it was truly humiliating.

No real advice unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the replies and connections to this situation. Maybe it comes from me... like one of the PPs, I was a good student and really that was my whole identity. So, when I got a D- on a one question test in HS (I still remember what it was: "Define ethnocentricity"), I lost all footing. If I wasn't an "A" student --- what did I have to offer? I had to work on that when I got the D- and it was a shock.

I want my DD to succeed and to care about learning to add and spell. But, I feel that her reaction to getting less than 100% right (even if I show her that it is 97% or even if I give her the right spelling and ask her to just write what I'm spelling so she sees it spelled right), is just so personally offended. I would like to believe that she will outgrow this fear of being less than 100% perfect.

What should I be doing besides telling her that everyone makes mistakes and she's still important if she gets some wrong, and that sort of thing?

[Anonymous]

Are you scoring the tests? Why not let her do it?

If you let her score the test, she'd see her errors, but she wouldn't have the "mom knows I'm not perfect" factor. My guess: She'd figure out her mistakes and come to you asking to take another test.

If she's making the same mistakes over and over again, focus on teaching those skills instead of all the testing. Make today "i before e except after c" day and do creative stuff to reinforce the concept.

If she wants to take (and self-score) a test to see what she's learned, that's up to her.

[Anonymous]

Dear OP, I was a perfectionist from age 5 up: forty plus years later, I'm still learning that life isn't perfect nor can any amount of control-seeking/people-pleasing behavior on my part change circumstances. I am sure your child is not in this situation, but in my case, I have come to understand that the perfectionism was all about trying to overcome a very sad home situation (mentally ill mom, absent dad). I struggled with a BUNCH of more serious issues down the road (the most devastating of which involved eating disorders). I don't mean to sound overly dramatic, but I honestly wish I'd had some good intervention/quality talking time with a counselor years before I did (at age 17, when the eating disorders started to manifest). Good luck and take care -- please know that I don't intend my post to suggest this is about your home life; it could be something at school is getting to her or perhaps it's just her nature, but I do know, having BTDT, that this could be really hurting her inside. I applaud you for caring and for seeking guidance.

[Anonymous]

I'm dealing with this myself with my kids (especially oldest girl, 8 1/2). I love the book Mindset (Carol Dweck), which talks about the importance of praising effort, rather than results. My husband thought I was crazy when I told him it was a bad idea to tell our daughter she was "smart," because that can feed into the perfectionist thinking and, paradoxically, cause children to try less hard when the going gets tough. (I'm either smart or I'm not, so if this doesn't come easily to me, that means I'm not smart at it and I should quit and do something else). Instead, praise effort and perserverence (I can see you worked hard on this). A lot of books have echoed/repeated Dweck's findings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm dealing with this myself with my kids (especially oldest girl, 8 1/2). I love the book Mindset (Carol Dweck), which talks about the importance of praising effort, rather than results. My husband thought I was crazy when I told him it was a bad idea to tell our daughter she was "smart," because that can feed into the perfectionist thinking and, paradoxically, cause children to try less hard when the going gets tough. (I'm either smart or I'm not, so if this doesn't come easily to me, that means I'm not smart at it and I should quit and do something else). Instead, praise effort and perserverence (I can see you worked hard on this). A lot of books have echoed/repeated Dweck's findings.

OP here -- this really resonates with me b/c I never understood in college WHY people would stay in a major where they were getting C's and D's. I on the other hand, probably should have chosen a more marketable major, but I stuck with the subject that I could get A's in. I remember thinking many times the exact same phrase that I highlighted in bold. I guess the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. Although, I don't remember having drama and trauma for misspelling a word on a quiz, but then, my parents never gave me spelling quizzes either.

I may have to look for that book. Thanks!