Kids can be really hypercritical of themselves, particularly at a stage of development when we adults are amazed at everything they’re doing successfully.

Kids start to be aware of the difference between what they drew and what they imagined at about the same point that their parents begin breathing a sigh of relief and finally being pretty sure they’ll only use the crayons on paper, not the walls.

Still, we tend to respond by arguing and pushing back, and an occupational therapist’s social media post about childhood perfectionism just changed my entire perspective. Maybe it’ll shift yours, too.

Does Anybody Actually Draw What They Meant To The First Time?

Even the most famous artists aren’t always satisfied with their first drafts, as the BBC shared in a 2019 report about artwork that Leonardo Da Vinci later painted over. His infamous painting Virgin of the Rocks was examined with new technology, and it turns out that the figures in the painting were initially placed in entirely different positions.

If it can take Da Vinci multiple tries to get a painting the way he wants it, it’s okay for my 8-year-old to crumple up, throw away, and retry the cartoon character he’s been trying to depict, right? especially since I’m personally awed by his first draft.

A few years ago, he went through a highly self-critical period in which he never unveiled a drawing without a comment like, “I’m showing you this even though it’s terrible.”

Of course, I told him how wrong he was. I told him I’ve been drawing for decades longer than him and still can’t do that, I told him he has an amazing eye for space and line, I hung them on the refrigerator.

He’s mostly grown out of that stage now, but The Occuplaytional Therapist’s recent Facebook post just made me wonder if a different strategy might have been more thoughtful.

It’s A Normal Developmental Phase

Kelsie Olds is an occupational therapist who also shares her revelations on social media accounts and a website named “The Occuplaytional Therapist.”

In a post this past week, she tackled dealing with a child’s perfectionism, which she says typically peaks around 5-6 years old, though it can start earlier or continue later. Specifically, she talked about our tendency as adults to do what we think is encouraging, and to not notice that it’s an explicit rejection of our child’s feelings. She offered a comparison:

“Imagine if you wrote an important business email, or maybe wrote out your resume, and sent it or submitted it. Then later, when telling your friend or loved one about it, you pulled up the email or resume to show them, and realized it had like five massive typos right in the middle of it.”

She asks us to consider how we’d feel if our loved one kept insisting, aww, it doesn’t matter, typos are okay, nobody expects you to do better, while we spiraled and imagined how our email should have been.

What Should We Be Doing Instead?

Instead, The Occuplaytional Therapist advises empathizing with your kid.

You don’t have to agree that his drawing is awful. You can agree that it feels terrible when something doesn’t come out as you imagined. You can agree that it’s frustrating to make mistakes.

They explain that when we keep pushing back, we’re communicating to our kids that their concerns aren’t important and that trying to get things right doesn’t really matter in life.

Of course, we’d never tell our kids that on purpose!

Instead, empathize with how it must feel to be big enough “whole entire movies, and scenery, and people in all their complexity, and fantasy scenes, and and and…and only be able to make your hands make, like, basic shapes and lines,” for instance, or old enough to be able to read and write a little but not enough to put your whole story idea on paper (adult writers will also recognize this feeling). They even offer a sample script:

child: it’s not right!!!
you: oh man!! That’s so disappointing! (matching their level of energy about it)
child: it never turns out right, I hate it (crumpling the paper, throwing it away)
you: ughhh I know it’s so disappointing when you had an idea in your head and it didn’t come out that way
child: I’m never drawing again
you: we totally don’t have to draw right now. Do you want to do something else? Do you want to just cuddle and feel mad?
child: I always make a mistake when I draw.
you: it feels like it never comes out of your hands like it is in your brain, huh? I bet that’s so frustrating.

Meanwhile, Keep Teaching

If this sounds like you’re being advised just to agree that your kid’s drawings are terrible and he should give it up, that’s not the case.

This is about our reactions in the moment when our kids are talking about their feelings about failing to produce what they intended. Our ongoing actions will inform and influence how our kids learn to react to disappointment and failure.

The Occuplaytional Therapist recommends ongoing modeling with your own mistakes. They suggest:

“Talk your process out loud. ‘“’Ah shoot. I forgot to bring the bag with me today. Now I’m going to have to figure out how to fix this mistake. I’ll drop you off at school and then go back for it.’ ‘Whoops, I was writing the letter u and it came out looking more like a v. That’s okay. I can erase it.’ ‘I spilled this on my shirt. I’m going to do the best I can to get it out with soap but it might not. That’s frustrating, but I know it was just a mistake.’ Etc, etc.”

And, Have Some Patience

Most importantly, remember that this is a normal phase.

Some people carry elements of this into adulthood when they don’t learn as kids how to cope with failure (real or perceived) and disappointment. However, when your small child is dealing with it, he’s most likely going through the normal phase of perfectionism that most kids experience and he will most likely grow out of it.

Your role is to give him the best support you can offer so that he can grow out of this phase comfortably and with his emotions validated.