My daughter turned 3 last October. She is of course the most wonderful child in the world but I have two concerns going on right now.
Worry # 1 - recently when she’s been drawing or painting or if she’s singing a song - she’ll say “oh I didn’t do that very good”, or “I don’t know all the words so I won’t sing that song” … My husband and I work very hard not to put any pressure on her to be “perfect” - we praise the effort, not the results, etc etc - so I’m at a loss as to where this is coming from. I WANT her to sing a song even if she doesn’t know the words, and I WANT her to not have to feel like her circles or triangles or whatever have to be EXACTLY right.
I personally am very self-critical, which I am aware of, and I consciously do NOT criticize myself or put myself down when she is around. So I would like to know what to do or say to her when she makes these comments - I don’t want her to grow up to be a perfectionist like her mom.
Worry # 2 - when she draws the letter S, for example, she draws it backwards. When she tried to learn how to make a triangle yesterday, I asked her to copy me, and if I drew a line from left to right, she drew a line from right to left. Is this a sign of dyslexia or is it normal? She also gets 3s and Es mixed up … Anything to worry about or have evaluated, or is this all right for her age?
#1 I found that my kids went through stages like that from time to time. My personal theory is that it happens when the kid first is able to recognize that there are different levels of quality in any kind of performance and/or is able to compare themselves to an ideal or to someone else. Before that they’re just oblivious.
#2 is perfectly normal and often persists a bit in children years older than yours.
I guess I am overly sensitive about the hyper-critical thing, since it has affected MY life and self-esteem so much … what I’ve been doing is telling her “your circle is just different from mine, because you’re still learning, and mommy’s been drawing circles for a looong time” or “it’s okay if you don’t know the words, just make them up or hum if you like, that’s what Mommy does”.
And good to know about the backwards stuff … she has only really done Xs up to this point :), and just started the Ss recently. She can find them on a typewriter no problem and often types Ss for herself (her name is Sophia), Ms for Mom and Ds for Dad …
I am not hyper self critical or self conscious. Not surprisingly, neither are any of my kids. The reason why? Because if they say the occasional self critical statement, it doesn’t even hit my radar; I’m not sensitive to statements of that ilk.
Because of your self described background, you *are * sensitive to any possible self critical statements. Even if you make a point to not be a perfectionist around your kid (with debatable success) your sensitivity to her statements make her little antennae go up, so she continues to do it to get a reaction if only to figure out why mommy gets all uptight when certain things are said.
You want to make sure that your kid does not become super self critical? Make an effort not to care, one way or another.
Your issues will not be her issues, unless you make them so.
ETA-backwards letters usually resolve themselves, sooner rather than later.
At the moment, make an effort not to care about the direct of her S’s or her triangles.
Did she learn to cross crawl when she was a baby? If not, teach her how to do that now.
Cross crawling is being on all fours and moving the left arm forward at the same time that the right leg is moved forward. Then the right arm is moved forward when the left leg is moved forward.
Studies have show for over four decades now that the step of learning to cross crawl is very helpful in wiring the brain correctly for reading skills later. Some children crawl on their sides or don’t crawl at all. They go from sitting to standing and then walking.
It is a shame that more teachers and parents and doctors are unaware of this.
Zoe - thanks - she was a very late crawler - but I am certain she did the cross crawling method once she finally started movin’. Good to know though!
I am also going to enroll her in gymnastics - she loves to move around and have fun and be a little silly, and a friend (a gymnastics coach) told me that there are studies that show a correlation between gymnastics & improved learning - again to do with the “wiring the brain”.
She’s doing great for a three year old. Making and finding letters is well up on the play.
If you’re really worried about the hyper criticism, have a ‘backwards’ game, where you both deliberately get things wrong (clothes, sentences, stories) and laugh about how they turn out. Play it often.
But the OP has a major contradiction - you’re worried that she’s a perfectionist, and you’re worried that a three year old isn’t wring *perfect *letters.
It’s not that I’m worried that her letters aren’t perfect - I’ve been worried that it might be a sign of some learning disability that maybe could be caught early, and worked on so that it wouldn’t cause her problems down the road.
Does that make more sense? Maybe I’m not explaining myself well. And I’m certainly not pointing out any of these “imperfections” to HER - if she mentions that it looks different from mine, I agree and then we move on, to either try it again if she wants to, or to draw something else.
Considering the spelling mistake in my post, I’m certainly not judging! But she may be picking up on non-verbal signs of worry and blowing it out of proportion. She could just be very bright as self criticism often goes hand in hand with giftedness.
My mother teaches kids and did her training with 5-6 year olds who often got their letters backwards - if they got the basic shape right at *that *age, she knew they’d be fine. Because they were in school, she’d gently explain why the letters needed to be the right way round, at three you’re allowed to be astounded that she’s making them at all. The only advice I can give is that if you want to correct something, start with “That’s a great start, can you …”
Some kids (but *not *all!) will need to be told the right way if they’ve noticed a difference. Others just need to know they got close. It’s entirely up to you what your kid needs.
My early childhood education course (18m - 3y) covered exactly this situation by pointing out that, to a kid of 2-3 years, there’s virtually no difference between d p b q, they’re all the same shape, just turned around - like you can do with the letters on blocks, or cards. I made a game out of that for my kid (can’t remember the age, would have been 3/4). All the letters that could be something else when turned around, written onto scraps of paper - made fun of the letters instead of her feeling she was wrong.
My kid responds to games (can you tell?) you’ll know what works best for your kid, not so she learns better, but enjoys the learning.
The thing is, for most parents who aren’t perfectionists, it wouldn’t cross their (our!) minds to be concerned - they’d be too busy doing the 'WOO-HOO! My baby is WRITING!" dance and showing off her skill to all and sundry till everybody was heartily sick of them.
Your daughter has your genes, and is being brought up by you, and it’s quite likely that being self-critical is a trap she may be more in danger of falling in to than most. No personality traits form in a vacuum, and your own self-criticality is probably linked to positive traits which you want her to pick up on - attention to detail, for instance. But the good thing is, you know this is an issue for you, so if it does come up for her too, you will be there to help her, having gone through the journey first yourself
One thing I had to learn to do was just be quiet and let my girls sing their songs and draw their pictures however they want. If they ask for help I’ll help but otherwise I butt out and let them have at it. I pretend I’m not paying attention so they won’t be self-conscious when they sing to themselves.
I’m not a parent, so feel free to disregard at will. My mother is hyper self-critical, and it’s caused her no end of concern that she passed that on to me. I really think, though, that it’s genetic, and that I just inherited her self-critical genes. I don’t remember being pushed at all as a child, and I remember using the “My parents are going to KILL me!” excuse later on in school when I really meant that I hated myself for having lost a few points on an assignment.
I understand what you mean about concern; you’re not necessarily being a perfectionist to notice warning signs for learning disabilities. Given that I’ve seen young school-aged children occasionally reverse letters and numbers, I would hazard a fairly confident guess that it’s perfectly normal in three-year-olds. But if you were to ignore warning signs, and just be dancing merrily around crowing that your child could write, you would also be condemned as a poor parent for thinking your snookums was a special snowflake who could do no wrong. It’s great that so much emphasis is being put on helping children before it causes major problems in their schooling, but along with that comes a hyper-vigilance that I’ve seen in a lot of parents.
Here is a good way to think about the writing thing – children up to a certain age are not really writing but are doing something more like drawing letters. The left/right thing makes no difference when you are drawing and is not something they are really paying attention to at this moment. I recall Youngest making words starting with the last letter and going “backwards” to the first one, it made perfect sense to him and the result was as far as he could see the same. He is not even a little dyslexic.
As for the other thing, I knwo where you are coming from, as I am the perfectionist child of a perfectionist, and mother of another budding one – but you know, this is one of the things you ultimately have to let go of. She will live her own life and if it is a life as a perfectionist, well, there is little you can do about it other than help her to get on with it. I know, this implies that you have to accept that good enough parenting really is good enough which you are certain it is not.
But really, it is good enough, that’s why they call it that. The kindest thing you can do is not to react too strongly when she goes through these stages (closely to be followed by the stage in which she thinks she is fat, the stage in which she thinks she is something else…it does not stop, or at least it has not yet) and as necessary help her to work out how to go through life as a person who is at least at this moment whatever.
but I have two concerns going on right now.