Six Year-Old Perfectionism?

Q. My 6-year-old daughter seems to be suffering from performance anxiety and perfectionism not only at school but overall in her life. I’d love to get some ideas and/or resources for help with this issue. Specifically what I notice is that my daughter will start on a homework activity (for example, a math word problem) and get into an emotional frenzy such that she cannot even read the actual word problem (which she is easily capable of doing). This problem is not just limited to schoolwork, but affects every area of my daughter’s life.
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Dear Thoughtful Mother:

Yes, it looks like feelings have trapped your little girl into a box that is getting tighter and tighter for her. Good for you for reaching out for some ideas and help!�

One way to look at her fear of making mistakes is to see it as a symptom of some knot of fear that she carries into every situation. If you just address the symptom—the difficulty with math, for instance—the things you do will be less effective than if you address this as a situation that calls for your help with her fears in general.

One way to help children gain confidence in a global way is to play hard with them, to play rambunctiously. Children’s strength and confidence is built with pillow fights, chasing through the house, horseback rides that end with you bucking her (carefully, but not too carefully) off onto a soft carpet, contests in which she jumps on the bed or the sofa while you try (but mostly fail) to catch her feet, and putting her on your back and giving her bouncy rides around the house.� During this kind of play, watch carefully to see what lets her laugh, and do more of that, working to get as many giggles as you can. Take the less powerful, less capable role in the play. Be goofy, try to catch her but trip and fall, offer kisses and chase her all over to land just one. You don’t need much of an excuse to play this way. Just start, notice the moments when laughter breaks through, and do more of whatever created that opening.

Try to sustain this kind of play, which we call Playlistening.� Be watchful not to play so forcefully that you overwhelm and frighten her, but do challenge her every now and again in the middle of play she knows she can handle. You don’t want her to feel that she’s in danger of being defeated. Always give her a chance to rise again to “get’ you back. Her laughter helps her to offload fear and build a sense of resilience. When she gets hurt (minor bumps may bring floods of tears or anger), just move in and listen. Let her cry passionately for as long as she needs to. These hearty cries, with your support, are part of what’s necessary to help her move from easily feeling overwhelmed by small tasks toward feeling her power even when she’s challenged.

Vigorous Playlistening sets the stage for this next piece of work, which will address her fear of making mistakes more directly.

I’ll now describe the Staylistening tool for helping her with her fear. You’ve told her, probably many times by now, that mistakes are OK, and are part of the learning process. That’s important, but it’s a step you can now consider “done.” Your verbal guidance has done as much as it can. Concepts don’t help us when we’re upset. When her “I’m overwhelmed” feelings come up, they blot out the good things you’ve tried to convey. You can’t teach her anything during those moments. What you can do is pay attention and offer your caring while she is overcome by the feelings she has and offloads them in tears and tantrums.�

So, let’s imagine that she’s become flustered over a word problem in math. You say, “I’ll help you while you try the word problem again,” with a light and encouraging tone. She says she doesn’t want to, and feelings arise. Move in, get close, and say, “Well, I’ll help you. Let’s take a look at it.” Then she gets angry and says she doesn’t want to. Stay close. Listen. Let her become engulfed in feelings. Be as warm and confident as you can be, under the circumstances. When her crying or tantrum slows down, say, “I think you can probably do it. Let’s take another look.” Let her blow up. Let her cry. Let her be beyond reason. Let her be angry with you. Let her say horrible things about you and school and anything else that’s on her mind. Listen. Your attention is a powerful antidote to the feeling she is battling.

Keep putting forward the idea that she can do it. That you will stay until she is ready to try again. That it will be good to try again. That she’ll figure it out. But don’t talk a lot. Just say a few words now and then while she rages or cries. Keep her there, where she is positioned to try again. Don’t insist that she try again within any particular timeframe. The expression of feelings is healing, and it will take whatever time it takes. There’s no rush. She’s in the middle of an emotional bad dream, and her perception is warped by the bad feelings as they make their exit. When she has worked through a chunk, she’ll be able to think and try again.

This is the healing process. This is discouragement melting. This is frustration draining away. This is, “I can’t do it! I’m no good!” washing out of her. Don’t try to reason. don’t try to convince her that she’s smart. Instead, Listen till she feels better–it may be a long time. But she will feel better when she’s done, if you can listen until she is done.

So, any time she goes into an upset, about math or anything else, get close, and offer very mild encouragement. If she says, “I hate math! I’m terrible at it,” say something like, “That can change, sweetie. It’s not always going to feel this way, or, “Honey, I think you probably can do this.” (Not “Oh, sweetie, you are SUCH a smart girl! Of COURSE you can!”) Just indicate mildly that things might turn out OK in the end, and that she’s not alone–you’re with her while she feels this badly. You’ll be her anchor through some world-class emotional episodes. And she’ll move this fear out of her way.� You can see how a little bit of this process worked for one father we know in our new blog.

A word about praise here: the effect of constant praise for children’s efforts and the work they produce is not entirely helpful. What actually is helpful for our children is those moments when they feel good about what they’ve done. Our feelings about their work are important, but secondary. The most powerful motivation to learn is a child’s own sense of accomplishment and mastery. And they “get it” when we’re pleased, even without words of praise. They can hear delight in our voices, and see it on our faces. If we can get enough listening time from another parent so that our tension has an outlet, then we can feel and show our genuine delight, so our children also feel “seen” in their accomplishments.

As Alfie Kohn points out, we want children to work for their own inner satisfaction, rather than to try hard to earn our praise. Special Time is a good tool for helping children feel that inner satisfaction, as well as our pleasure in them. During Special Time, we pay pleased attention to them, and they do what they love to do. This keeps children aware of their own feelings, and able to access our delight in them by asking for Special Time. They master things because it feels good to master things. We want to notice them, acknowledge them, but not use praise as part of a “reward system.”� Connection with us, which will foster their natural drive toward mastery, is all they need.

I hope this is helpful to you. We’d love to hear what you try, and how it goes on our discussion group. It may sound like a lot of work, but it happens only one minute at a time, and the rewards last a lifetime!

Yours,

Patty
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Hand in Hand is a parent education non-profit that has been helping families to build the super-protective factor of parent-child connectedness for twenty years.� You can learn more by reading the Listening to Children booklet series by Patty Wipfler or by signing up for our free monthly newsletter, Connecting!