We had our Assist meeting today. The meeting was re-scheduled to accomodate the school psychologists schedule. He didn’t show up, nor did he call. I signed the paperwork to have my daughter tested. I am now regretting that I didn’t request a female psychologist in writing. Her teachers comments were very enlightening. Aside from difficulty in nearly every subject, she seems to be a “perfectionist.” Is this common in children with ADD? I am guilty of telling her to do her best on a regular basis.
Re: perfectionism?
Just a thought: there’s trying to do your best, which is a very positive trait; and there is over-perfectionism to the point of crippling yourself, a very negative trait.
The difference: a person who always tries to do his or her best will, like every human, sometimes make mistakes. He will do his best to correct those mistakes and will move on. The over-perfectionist will see one tiny flaw, throw his hands in the air, and quit. It isn’t possible to do perfectly, so he will not even try.
I know some over-perfectionists all too well, and it is not pleasant for anyone near them, or for themselves.If your child is developing this way, it may be a good idea to work a little on accepting a few flaws and working for the best outcome, flaws and all.
Regarding perfectionism, one of our nine-year-old sons is the exact same way, despite co-existing disabilities of expressive and receptive language difficulties.
My husband (who by the way, has a similar learning disability that wasn’t diagnosed until 1996, when he was 43 - after he had already completed the toughest boys’ prep school in Toledo, and earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees) and I believe in a “high bar” for all our sons. We do not feel guilty for encouraging and expecting each of one of them to “do their best” at all times.
Their “best” is an individual thing, though, and we also teach them to realize that. Identified disability or not, we all have strengths and weaknesses. Part of being successful for everyone is to learn strategies for both accentuating one’s strengths and de-emphasizing one’s weaknesses. (I should also point out that although we speak often of doing one’s best to ALL of our sons, the other two are not similarly “burdened” with perfectionism - FAR FROM IT!:).
This may be the cynical side of me talking, but one thing to consider: as “enlightening” as the teachers’ remarks may have seemed, there may be an agenda to MAKE you feel guilty that because you encourage your daughter to do her best, you have thereby CREATED in her the “perfectionistic” tendencies to which they’re referring. The obvious solution, then, is for you to convey a “lowering of the bar” to your daughter, which then serves to take the pressure off of them (and other school district personnel, such as the no-show psychologist - shameful!) to work on figuring out what is really going on with her.
An aside: I attended a friend’s “Assistance Team” meeting at her invitation as a silent observer/note taker and saw a very similar scenario play out before my eyes. This child has ADD, appropriately assessed and documented, but the school district personnel (in an extremely nice, sweet way) kept implying that Ashley’s more pressing problem was that she lacked confidence, and kept saying things like, “We wonder if there’s anything going on outside of school that would make Ashley so under-confident?” Sounds very sympathetic, right? To me, and ultimately to my friend, it seemed that they were really saying was, “What you really need to do is be a better, more empathetic parent… let us help you address those issues…” [I happen to know that this friend is very empathetic towards all of her children). If it had worked, it would have completely let them off the hook. However, because the mother in this case was less naieve than they had expected, ended up demanding that they make the appropriate services available to her daughter, who is now doing much better in school. Amazing how a little success in school can go a long way in addressing that “lack of confidence” problem!
I, too, worried (as mothers do) about Kevin’s “perfectionistic” tendencies. However, now I realize that although there are downsides, those tendencies are part of his personality, and ultimately serve him well in that because he challenges himself to do so, he consistently achieves more than school personnel expect.
Our job as parents, then, is to constantly communicate with our son to detect any signs of stress that may appear as a result of him putting too much pressure on himself.
Obviously, only you can really assess the situation. I hope you will understand the place from which I make my remarks, which perhaps aren’t at all relevant to your child’s case.