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Social Anxiety Always Needs Help and Grade Skipping Very Effective for Some Gifted Students
Social Anxiety Always Needs Help and Grade Skipping Very Effective for Some Gifted Students
Q: How do you know when social anxiety requires more attention (e.g. therapy or medication)?
A: A parent is often the first person who can help a socially …Read more.
Helping Over-Empowered High-School Students Is Not Easy
Q: My question is related to my role as a high-school teacher. I have my master's in special education with a concentration on students with emotional disabilities. I've taught for the last 15 years as either a special education or English teacher, …Read more.
When Should a Child be IQ Tested? and Death Is Frightening to Children
Q: At what point should IQ testing be conducted? We have an only child — a girl who is in kindergarten.
A: There's no specific time that all children should be given individual IQ tests by a psychologist. Schools often arrange for group IQ …Read more.
Grandson May be More Difficult During Grandma's Visit
Q: I'm concerned about my 2-year-old grandson who seems very needy and demanding. He cries for at least an hour after his mom leaves. Occasionally, distraction works but not often. He says, "It's mine" over and over about everything in his …Read more.
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Perfectionists Need BalanceEditor's Note: Sylvia Rimm is off. The following column has been published in the past few years. Q: Our daughter is in the eighth grade and very much the perfectionist. She believes that if she doesn't put in an inordinate amount of effort into her schoolwork that she'll fail and those around her will be disappointed. Last night, she was up until 3:30 a.m. trying to finish her work. She says that her good grades are who she is but it's infringing on her life, making her miserable, and causing stress between all of us. She's an only child and therefore has always had undivided attention. She craves this especially of me, and at times it can be overwhelming. If you could let us know what steps we should take to help her be happy with who she is, we would appreciate it. A: The extreme praise that gifted first and only children receive from the adults that surround them can easily cause them to internalize their praise words as high and impossible expectations and, as your daughter expressed, define who they are. When I work with such driven children in my clinical work, I often find myself reversing the soundtrack I use with underachievers. Instead of encouraging kids to put in more effort, I suggest they experiment with putting in slightly less effort. They are often shocked to find that their grades continue to come back as A's, or at worst A-'s. They may finally agree that an A- isn't a failure. I also help them to find balance in their lives — encouraging them to take time for fun, laughter, game playing and relaxing.
It's worth examining your own style of accomplishment as well. If you or your husband is a perfectionist, your daughter may only be copying a role model she sees. You may want to learn to talk aloud about your mistakes, learning from them, laughing about them and certainly not beating yourself up about them. If your daughter continues to put too much pressure on herself, it can cause some serious physical and emotional problems. If you don't see your daughter's anxiety about perfectionism diminishing, you'll want to consider therapy for her. No child should be working all the time. You might specifically search out counselors or psychologists who specialize in gifted children, since they're likely to have experience working with perfectionism. For free newsletters about the book "Keys to Parenting the Gifted Child" (Great Potential Press, 2007) or perfectionism, send a large self-addressed, stamped envelope to the address below. Dr. Sylvia B. Rimm is the director of the Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and the author of many books on parenting. More information on raising kids is available at www.sylviarimm.com. Please send questions to: Sylvia B. Rimm on Raising Kids, P.O. Box 32, Watertown, WI 53094 or srimm@sylviarimm.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
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