How do you make mistakes ok for a child?

[Spudlet]

DS is 6 and has ASD (which I suspect may be part of this). He hates making mistakes with a passion. Getting a wrong answer on a test really upsets him, to the point that he is reluctant to try things in case he fails.

I don’t know where this has come from - we have always encouraged him to give things a go, and when he does make mistakes we don’t criticise, we say they’re a good chance to learn. We try to be very positive about the whole thing. We always praise him for trying things and use language that focuses on this (like saying ‘good try! You worked really hard at that, well done!’) He can’t explain why making a mistake would be so awful, and I don’t think it’s come from school either - it’s a very nurturing little primary school. They have definitely noticed this trait in him as well.

I also hated making mistakes as a child - I mean could be be nature over nuture…?!

Any ideas on how we could help to be more comfortable with trying things and getting them wrong would be great - we’ve just a torturous session practicing his spellings, where he didn’t want to try in case he got one wrong. We got there in the end (and he actually got them all right, which actually maybe doesn’t help) but I feel drained!

As a primary school teacher I always praised mistakes. "If you never make a mistake, you never learn anything new". Praise for trying not necessarily succeeding.

As above. Most amazing discoveries have come from lots and lots of mistakes first. Stop calling them mistakes? Maybe call them attempts. So if he gets something wrong say "well done on that attempt, let's try again".

Also point out your own mistakes. If I get something wrong I will show the kids what I've done and laugh and try again, or fix it.

I have a wee perfectionist too and it's hard on them.

Have a look on YouTube for growth mindset videos, they're good at explaining in a child friendly way how mistakes help us learn and your brain can only grow through being challenged.

Thank you both. Bless him, it is so hard on him.

I’ve never shied away from showing him where I’ve got things wrong (actually, he often points things out to me 😂) and we talk about how making ‘mistakes’ is actually an important part of his daddy’s job (programmer so he’s constantly trying things out to see if they work and going back and trying again until they do). So I honestly don’t know where this is coming from but I will try and be extra careful about the language we’re using, just in case we’re slipping up!

X-post, thank you I will look!

Ask the school to exempt him from tests. Six is far too young for children to be tested on anything where there's a right/ wrong answer even for NT children.

Perfectionism is a trait that goes hand in hand with ADHD. School should make allowances here.

You say that you have/had the same trait - I know you're saying all the right things to him, but are you modelling it? Does he see you make mistakes and shrug it off? I have something quite similar - I absolutely hate asking for help, which has caused me a lot of problems throughout life - and I said to a counsellor that I couldn't understand why my son was like that too, since I'd always really encouraged him to be the opposite. She pointed out that I said all the right things but it wasn't backed up by how I myself behaved, and that ultimately that's more powerful.

This.

Every "mistake" is learning a different way not to do something. I told my children that if they have never made a mistake, they don't have a full understanding of the subject.

You and his dad need to make lots of trivial mistakes, and either casually admit and dismiss them or calmly put them right. "oops, forgot the salt. Never mind. " "The clock is fast" "I forgot to feed the dog". "dinner's going to be late".
"who forgot to flush the loo?" "can't find my keys".

Play games like snap, connect 4, bingo where someone loses (or slides back down the snakes) to practice braving harmless setbacks.

At that age one of the GC loved a pelmanism animal card game; you spread out a pack of cards face down, turn over 2 and try to pick pairs. If your pick wasn;t a pair, put them back. Other players may remember where the discards are placed. GC has a far better memory than me so I usually lose.

Agree with above, but it is also fascinating to learn about inventions and discoveries that were the result of “mistakes”. So it might also help to hear that sometimes mistakes happen for a reason…with amazing outcomes.

Antibiotics is the most famous one. Alexander Fleming was, it seems, a bit disorderly in his work and accidentally discovered penicillin. Upon returning from a holiday in Suffolk in 1928, he noticed that a fungus, Penicillium notatum, had contaminated a culture plate of Staphylococcus bacteria he had accidentally left uncovered. The fungus had created bacteria-free zones wherever it grew on the plate. Fleming isolated and grew the mould in pure culture. He found that P. notatum proved extremely effective even at very low concentrations, preventing Staphylococcus growth even when diluted 800 times, and was less toxic than the disinfectants used at the time. Until his mistake of leaving a culture uncovered, all the scientists were looking at chemical disinfectants, no one had even a whisper of an idea that fungus might kill bacteria… Antibiotics have saved over a billion lives.

Another is the pacemaker and that people with dodgy hearts get implanted to keep them alive. The inventor John Hopps was trying to use radio frequencies to record the heart beating when he accidentally put the wrong resistor (electronic component) in his device. He discovered then that the device could affect the beating of a heart instead of simply recording the beats.

The microwave, also an accident. Percy Spencer an engineer was working on a government project in radar when he was testing and realised his chocolate bar in his shirt pocket had started to melt! He then brought popcorn into the testing area and when it started to pop, realised he had invented a new way to cook! (And sterilise).

Stain protector Scotchguard. This was invented by Patsy Sherman a chemist who was trying to create rubber seals that would not deteriorate when exposed to jet fuel (essential for aeroplanes). While she was testing one concoction, a drop fell on her shoe. When she went home, she noticed there was a suspiciously clean spot on her shoe. She then traced it back, and voila, we have stain protector.

Post it Notes. Spencer Silver at 3M was supposed to be coming up with a really strong glue (super glue wasn’t around then). He completely failed by making the weakest adhesive known to man. One small tug, and it failed leaving no trace of its existence. But this ended up being perfect for sticking notes to things without damaging them and post it notes were born!

Try and find an activity that’s still fun and he still achieves even when it goes completely wrong. I have adhd, but grew up with horses and even when I caused the most monumental fuck ups it was still amazing fun and I always felt like I’d learned something that helped on another occasion.And the fear of screwing up with a horse never hit my radar so it never put me off trying.
However to some extent it is just a part of who I am, and probably the same for him so to some extent I think it’s more about teaching him to manage it rather than curing it iyswim.

Rosie Revere Engineer is a good book about making mistakes.

My ASD DC hates making mistakes or getting things wrong and he has gone from it affecting his whole day to something that bothers him but he can now move past pretty quickly. I took very similar approach to you and eventually we can see huge improvement in how he can now move past the mistake.
Like you I always aim for language around trying your best and stay away from language around being the best.
I will also where appropriate talk about mistakes I make and tell him how I feel about it. I helped him label his feelings about his mistakes such as frustration or embarrassment etc.
Honestly, it was a long process but I can’t prevent him from making mistakes so I did my best to help him learn how to cope with mistakes. At one time a mistake could cause a meltdown and now he can laugh about some of them.

@Hardbackwriter That’s a fair point - I really don’t know if I’m modelling this well or not for him. I think I am, but I’m honestly not sure. DH and I are both definitely perfectionists and pretty hard on ourselves so maybe we aren’t modelling this well for him. It’s so hard to know.

There are some really good points to consider on this thread, thank you to everyone that has taken the time to reply.

This is my DD! Someone gave me the advice to start getting her involved in team sports. She can try as hard as she possibly can as part of a team, but ultimately if they win or lose isn’t down to her alone. It’s a good way to “practice failure”.