I love the passing of time

My 1st grade son is way too sensitive or maybe he’s way too hard on himself, too much of a perfectionist. Actually, I think it’s a combination of both.

Now, this doesn’t happen all of the time, but it’s happened often enough that his teacher has noticed it -and- the other kids in class have, too. We see it at home, too.

A couple of examples from his Cub Scout meeting last night.

They were working on a family tree. All of the boys sitting around a table. The Den Leader had drawn & colored trees on paper & passed them out to the kids. She had a whiteboard with a similar tree on it (not colored, though), where she had written ‘Me’ on the trunk, ‘My Mom’ and ‘My Dad’ on the first set of branches, ‘My sister’ and ‘My brother’ on tiny branches, ‘Grandma’ & ‘Grandpa’ higher up, etc.

The boys were all talking, a bit. And, the Den mom was standing up at the front, telling the boys what to do. Speaking to them individually, but out loud across the table. She doesn’t know my son very well yet & she shouldn’t have to, really - he should learn to deal with stuff like this.

His marker wasn’t working very well. *And* it was the same color as the already colored in tree trunk.

I could see him trying to listen to her & understand the instructions (but didn’t know about his pen problem). She was going around (standing at the other end of the table) asking the boys how they were doing, if they got their name on the bottom of the trunk yet, etc. When she asked Shelby (my son), “Shelby, did you write your name on the trunk yet”, he answered, but I could hear in his voice that he was fighting the urge to cry, so it was hard to understand him. He said something like, “I can’t fit it there, can I write it on the side”. I don’t think she understood him & I knew that if he had to answer again, he would start crying, so I went over, got close to him & started helping him out. (Probably a habit that contributes to the problem, I know – but, I couldn’t just stand there & let him start crying in front of all the other boys, though, either –and- some of the other moms & dads were already by their kids helping them, anyway)

Even with me sitting by him, speaking quietly & working with him, he still was worried about getting it exactly right – the way that it was ‘supposed to’ be. I helped him get a different marker that could be seen on the drawing. When we got to the part where we wrote in the Grandparents, I told him that Dad’s Dad & Mom liked to be called ‘Mama & Papa’ instead of ‘Grandma & Grandpa’. He said that he thought we had better write ‘Grandma & Grandpa’ because that’s what the leader said to do. Even though the kids all around us were talking to their parents & adding in stuff like aunts & uncles & cousins.

He wrote his little sister’s name backward – both the individual letters & the whole word. He does that sometimes & I usually just ignore it. Because if I point it out to him, he’ll be mad/sad that he made a mistake. I took a chance & pointed it out last night, saying how cool it was that he could mirror-write and, especially, that he did it without even realizing he was doing it. He was OK with that (and even excited to look at it in a mirror when we got home).

After the project, the den mother passed around snacks. I was a couple yards away from him, talking to some of the boys who were down on the floor playing with a guinea pig. I heard Shelby panicking (not loud, but loud enough for me to hear it). He was scrambling to get out of his chair & I thought that he just had an urgent bathroom emergency. When I got over to him, he was sad & worried because he had spilled a little bit of juice (you know the part that squirts out of a juice box when you stick the straw in) onto his picture. Again, he was near tears. I think he was worried that it was going to be graded in some way & he wanted it to be right (it was only his 2nd den meeting & he really really really wants to earn achievement badges). I went & got a tissue & dried it up for him. The picture was a little smeared, but just fine, really.

In a nutshell ( :rofl ), I think that he wants to be perfect, to do everything right -and- he’s embarrassed about drawing attention to himself if he’s doing things wrong (or if he did something that someone might laugh at him for - i.e. not knowing what to do when his pen’s not working right) -and- the embarrassment or fear of it makes him cry.

Maybe it’s just a maturity issue & he’s not quite there yet. Maybe it only happens when he’s too tired (meeting was at 7pm & he still isn’t really used to the time change, yet). It does seem to be getting better at home, anyway. And, his teacher (who I LOVE) is aware of it & is working on it with him, too. When she sees it starting, she’ll give him a firm “Shelby” & a ‘we talked about this & I know you want to get control of yourself’ kind of look.

Useless mommy guilt has me wondering what I did wrong to end up with this kind of perfectionist. Should I have been (should I be) more obvious when making my own mistakes & more vocal about how I was dealing with them? Should I not have expected him to take responsibility for himself & try to do his best? Did I get too frustrated/mad about messes that he made, especially the accidental spill kind of things (even when they happened because of wildness)? Does he worry too much about pleasing me or pleasing others that he respects (teachers, den leaders, etc)?

Sigh…

How do you build your child’s confidence? How do you teach them to deal with unusual situations & mistakes?