Perfectionism

Many students who are struggling to learn to read and spell, face the extra challenge of perfectionism. Perfectionism is a personality trait characterised by a relentless desire to achieve a perfect outcome every time. The problem for students with learning difficulties is that their perfectionistic beliefs transform the learning process into a source of anxiety and shame, removing the enjoyment of learning. These students have such a fear of failure that they will often avoid trying, shutting down completely, giving up quickly, or use a range of other avoidance strategies.

SOME STRATEGIES TO TRY

Normalise mistakes

• Model that making mistakes is a part of daily life.
• It is important that teachers and parents share their own mistakes and demonstrate how to ‘shrug it off’.
• Frequently reiterate that making mistakes is a natural part of the learning process.
• Provide opportunities for the student to make small, inconsequential mistakes and practise ‘shrugging it off’.
• Celebrate mistakes. I often lift my student’s hands in the air and make a ‘victory’ movement.
• Discuss times outside of schoolwork where the student has not succeeded at the first attempt – learning to walk is a good starting point!

Praise effort, not the outcome

• Praise your student for putting in the effort and trying to complete the task (or even a part of the task).
• Even when a student wins or achieves an excellent outcome, still focus on the effort that was put in, not the outcome. Acknowledge effort even before the outcome is known. For example, parents can reward the effort a student has put in during the term before a report card is received, rather than rewarding good grades on the report card.
• Rather than recording how many words students read or spelled correctly, record how many times they tried working out the pronunciation or spelling of a word.
• If I am testing students, I will often not provide any feedback at all or just say ‘great’ after every word or activity. If the student has made an error, I know that word or concept needs to be retaught.
• Circle mistakes and call it ‘learning’. I often make a comment such as, “Great, now I get to do my job as a teacher.”

Break tasks into small units

• Large units of work can be overwhelming and unmanageable.
• Break large tasks into smaller, achievable chunks.
• Example 1: If homework consists of 5 different activities, just focus on completing one activity at a time and celebrate each completion.
• Example 2: If you are trying to teach the structure of persuasive text, just focus on one small component at a time (e.g., just an introductory paragraph, just writing topic sentences, etc.).

Encourage a Growth Mindset

• Teach your students to adopt a growth mindset (i.e., abilities are not fixed and they can be improved with practice and perseverance).
• Develop a set of posters with relevant sayings which you can refer to as appropriate:
  • Mistakes are how I learn and grow.
  • With more practise it will get easier.
  • I’m still learning.
  • My brain is like a muscle, exercising it makes it stronger.
  • The 8 steps in learning or the learning pit, from ‘I won’t do it’ to ‘Yes, I did it’.
• See the post on Mindset

Provide lots of mini breaks

• Being a perfectionist is very tiring and stressful.
• Make sure you provide lots of min-breaks between different activities or if you see the student giving up or becoming upset.
• See 30 Second Brain Breaks for lots of suggestions.

Limit time pressure and competition

• Never compare students (within a classroom or within a family).
• Give students more time or be prepared to model the answer for the student to copy so you don’t get stuck at a particular point in the lesson.
• If an activity has a timing element, stop timing. Instead just have the student complete the activity a pre-determined number of time (3 is usually an achievable number that provides sufficient repetition).
• If learning a list of words or concepts, spend time practising just the ones the student finds difficult.

Acknowledge the challenge

• Perfectionism is a very real challenge and it is not particularly useful telling students not to worry or it doesn’t matter if they make a mistake.
• Preface activities you think the student will find difficult by saying, “This is going to be really hard, but just give it your best effort.” Then if the student succeeds, it feels like they have overcome a challenge. If they don’t succeed, then this is not so devastating because it was expected to be difficult.

Seek professional help

• If a child’s perfectionism is significantly affecting their learning or mental health, it is important to seek support from a qualified professional who specialises in working with children who exhibit perfectionist behaviour.
• It is better to seek help sooner rather than later.