Practice makes perfect

Our boy is quite a perfectionist. When he's doing something well, he tends to want to do it again and again to improve himself. He will continue until we ask him to stop. That explains why he draws the same picture everyday.

On the contrary, if he sees a challenge ahead, he will pout and scream at himself. To encourage him, we need to break the task into achievable bits so that he can see the "results" as parts to achieve the goal. When practicing piano, he needs to practise the more challenging phrases many times until he gets it before playing the whole song. When he plays a note wrong accidentally, he will start from the beginning.

This is a double-edged sword. It has been difficult to motivate him to start something new unless he is confident he can do it. He used to watch others playing at the playground before he finally went up the slide. Mei was exactly the opposite. She will go up the steps and slide down immediately.

But once he's into something, it's guaranteed that he will not give up easily. He will motivate himself to perfection and attempts more difficult tasks at his own pace. Mei, on the other hand, tries everything that comes in the way and gives up as when she thinks she's lost interest. For eg. She requested to drop out from art class to attend ballet class.

While the 2 children approach challenges different, the key is practice makes perfect. We always encourage them to put on efforts to practice be it writing, drawing, dancing or public speaking. We may not be good at the 1st attempt, but we will be better.