Advice for helping a perfectionist? DS is nearly 5 and needs quite a lot of coaxing to try new things at home but will do most things eventually. The issue is at nursery where he refuses to try things that he doesn’t know how to do already. He’s supposed to be starting a school readiness programme (we aren’t in the UK) but he won’t engage with the pre-writing and reading activities in case he can’t do them. In the past few weeks he’s also refused to look through a microscope, do an obstacle course and try shooting a bow and arrow at school in case he gets it wrong. I know he hates an audience until he feels confident, which I assume is part of the fear at school.
When he has tried things he is often extremely (over) confident in his abilities, and never thinks he needs to practice things. He’s also incredibly competitive and finds losing very difficult.
I was like this but I didn’t want DS to be so I’ve tried hard to model and praise effort, trying new stuff, not giving up, practising etc. We are open about our own mistakes in front of him. I worry he is not going to be able to access his education unless we can address this, we can’t learn the whole curriculum at home first! Any advice, books, games?