perfectionism

How do you handle a perfectionist? Especially when it is your child? I've always known that Elizabeth is a bit of a perfectionist ... she's a first born - and as a first born myself this was pretty easy to recognize!

The other day while we were working on schoolwork we finally reached the #20 in our counting to 100 exercise and it was time to write the #20. I helped her w/ the 2 and then sat back and allowed her to write the 0 on her own. "Aaaah, it doesn't look like a 0, it looks like an "O"!", she cried. After a deep breath I responded with, "Here is the eraser, let's erase it and you can do it over." Simple as that! Took her about 3 try's until she was "satisfied" with the way it looked. Wow. I had no idea she could get so bent out of shape about such a little thing!

I run into the same dilema when Ellie is drawing something. I can see that she has a "picture" of what the thing she is drawing is supposed to look like and she gets frustrated when she doesn't see on the paper what she can "see" in her mind. I don't want to give into the urge that I have of just doing it for her, (not that I would do very well since I'm not much of an artist) so instead I'm learning to give her direction on how she could make something ... or help her in one area of the drawing. For example ... showing her once how to make a tree (we were making a book about why she likes trees) and then talking her through it as she makes it on the next page. Or helping her draw the lion's mane but having her do the head, body, etc. It seems like this type of instruction works quite well for my little girl!