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Q: My seven-year-old
daughter, who is an only child and in the first grade, gets easily
frustrated and puts so much pressure on herself in almost everything
she does. She will try something several times, and if she can't
do it perfectly (or what she perceives as perfectly), she bows
her head and sobs. For example, she loves drawing and takes art
classes. Several times when the picture she was trying to draw
was a challenge, she started crying. Her Brownie troop was trying
to earn a "Try It" badge by figuring out a math problem.
The troop leader said she noticed my daughter was crying, took
her out of the room, and asked what the problem was. My daughter
started sobbing, saying, "I can't do it!" The leader
explained that it was a "Try It" badge, and that she
was only expected to try.
My husband and I emphasize the "trying"
part rather than the "success" part. I just hope that
we're not doing something to make our daughter feel pressured
to succeed. I notice that if she gets a lot of attention when
she's crying, she keeps it up longer. When I'm around, I try to
encourage her for a minute or so and then tell her to dry her
tears and move on to something else, or I have her try again,
but the frustration usually comes back very quickly. Do you have
any advice on how to help our daughter through this?
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