Perfectionism

In so many ways Ben is a Little Heath. They have similar temperaments and similar interests. However, every so often I see evidence that he's my son, too (aside from the fact that he CAME OUT OF ME). Ben has always been a very meticulous kid. He likes to line things up just so and if you mess with something he's organized he gets very perturbed. That is so me.

Lately it's been turning into perfectionism. He was drawing on his Magna Doodle and I noticed that one of the shapes he made looked like an uppercase "D." I pointed it out and asked if he wanted to try to draw it again. He did it a few more times and did it pretty well. So I asked if he wanted to learn other letters and he said "E". He did that one okay and then he asked to learn how to write "Ben." I was getting pretty excited because I was teaching him something and he was interested in learning. "N" went okay, but it all broke down with "B." Admittedly, it's a hard letter to write, with the two bumps, but when he couldn't do it perfectly the first time he got SO MAD. (That's more Heath than me. I'll usually give it a few tries before I want to give up.) He said, "I'm not good at this!" So we had our first talk about practicing and getting better. The interesting thing is that he didn't want to give up. He wanted to get it right. He tried it a few more times, but he was getting really frustrated so I made him stop.

I'm sad that he has this burden of perfectionism, because it's a hard road to travel, but it's a trait Heath and I both share so he had little chance of avoiding it. But at least this means he'll probably be a hard worker in school. I'd much rather make a kid stop studying and goof off than have to fight him to do homework every night.