Perfectionism

Being the Mom of a son with Autism you learn about perfectionism at an early age. Part of Cameron's issues consist of him having to do everything perfectly and quickly. This was not as big of an issue when he was not in school - but now that he is in kindergarten he is competing with 23 other kids.

So far I assume he has beat everyone because we have not had any issues and I get notes on his work about being first one done, plus his reading is so far advanced it blows my mind!

So yesterday at lunch when I got a call from Mrs. Beck that Cameron had been melting down numerous times that morning and she could not figure out why - I asked to speak to him. I asked him what was wrong and he just started crying uncontrollably. I decided I needed to go get him.

I picked him up from school and started talking to him - he was supposed to finish the sentence of "I have....." He wanted it to say "I have the best teacher ever and her name is Mrs. Beck". He then had to draw a picture of her face. He said that his drawing did not look like his teacher... so he started crying. Then during his time at the alphabet station he was not able to complete all 3 words and that made him cry. All he could tell me was "I am not as smart as everyone else".

Talk about a mother's broken heart - he tries so hard and I dont want him to struggle with all this for his whole life.

This morning before sending him off to school I sat down and talked about how great he was and that everyone has things in school that they struggle with - even I did as a child. So off he went with another great attitude to school.