Confessions of a Perfectionist Mama

We all know that children are unique individuals with different personalities and different ways of responding to the world around them.  And, in general, children tend to be more imaginative than grown-ups.  While I still do have an imagination of sorts, it’s different than a child’s.  Sometimes it’s easy to forget that children see things differently than we do.  And when a homeschool mama happens to have perfectionist tendencies, it’s so easy to stifle a child’s imagination and creativity if she’s not very careful.

Yesterday, I gave my 5-year-old daughter a picture to color.  It had a foal following its mama along a fence.  I sat there and watched her color.  She began with the horses.  The foal she colored brown.  Then she decided to make the mama horse green with an orange tail and brown mane.  The opposite side of the mama horse was pale green with a brown tail and blue mane.  To be honest, I was annoyed.  She knows horses aren’t green.  Brown, black, or white would have been fine, but green?  She didn’t stop with that.  She asked me what color she should use for the fence.  I suggested brown, picturing in my mind a neatly colored wooden fence.  She began with a few brown scribbles and then decided to switch to yellow. 

Again, I felt irritated.  Why can’t she just color it the way it ought to be?  Finally, I asked her, “Why are you coloring the fence different colors?”  Her matter-of-fact answer, “Because they’re painting it!”  As I pondered her answer, I realized that I have a very creative child.  She doesn’t look at things the same way I do.  I like things to look picture perfect.  She thinks beyond that, and sometimes her thinking is more realistic than my picture-perfect world.  Yes, they actually could be in the middle of repainting the fence.

Today, perfectionist mama wasn’t any better.  This time she was to color sequencing pictures of firefighters putting out a fire.  I had specifically asked her to color very neatly, because she’s been scribbling, and I know she can do better.  When she brought it back to me, it was neatly colored; however, the fire trucks and firefighters in the last picture were colored black instead of red.  The two pictures before it were brown.  Again, I was annoyed with her.  “Gabriela, why did you color this fire truck black???”  “Because it’s nighttime in that picture!”  Duh.  Again, creative child sees things differently than perfectionist mama, and you know what?  It made perfect sense.  Of course, it could have been night by the time the fire was put out.

Why the green horse with an orange tail?  Because she wanted it that way and thought it made the horse look pretty.  So maybe that’s not as realistic, but it is very creative.

My children constantly amaze me, and I realize it’s all to easy to let my personality overrule their creative natures.  Yes, there are some things children must be taught to do in a precise way, but in some things it’s best just to relax and see what they come up with.

After all of this, I finally told Gabriela, “You know what?  You are really a clever little girl!”