Her own worst enemy.

[feldman]

Um. Hello

Hola!

In lieu of an update, here is a list of things that will swallow one's time if given the chance:

1. parenthood
2. midlife crisis
3. injury sequelae in the middle-aged body
4. jobs with ill-defined descriptions

Like any prodigal child, I come bearing a dilemma. Namely, Cmonkey.

Cmonkey is now 2.75 years of age and has grown as many inches in the last two months. Her vocabulary is gobsmacking and she's learning how to read. She is bent on world domination. She has also begun to manifest a devastating perfectionism that I know too damned well, having struggled with it myself and having seen my brother wrestle with it as well.

My brother, for context, drew realistic suspension bridges at age 3. They created a gifted program for him in elementary school, and relaxed the entry standard so he wouldn't be the only one in it. As a hobby, he converted his automatic car to a manual trans. He's now an urban planner. I still don't think he realizes how brilliant he is.

Cmonkey has been out of diapers for about six months now. She's also contending with occasional growth-spurt related digestion issues in which there will be a pause of a few days and then suddenly she will unleash a turd the approximate size and shape of a guinea pig. Yesterday, she ate lightly, and her belly was hurting her. We rubbed it for her when it bothered her, went to the potty unproductively several times, put her in comfy pajamas and went to sleep (prunes being the next line of attack come morning).

I'm awakened last night when she comes to our bed to cuddle, occasionally whimpering. We soothe her, but she's not buying it, and I realize she's wearing jeans.

ME: What happened to your jamma pants, beanie?
CM (quietly): I pooped in them.

Let me give some context here:

1. We have two 16 year old cats, one of whom is dealing with incontinence. More to the point, Mr. F and I are now quite adept at gamely cleaning up mammal excrement around the casa. No big deal. We've also weathered poop in the bath with aplomb.

2. Upon study of the scene, not only did Cmonkey rouse from a sound sleep to poop, she also:
a. made it to the bathroom
b. got mostly onto the potty
c. caught a turd the size and shape of a doublewide railroad spike in her jamma pants
d. removed said pants and set them neatly on the stepstool with the turd inside
e. wiped effectively
f. found clean jeans
g. zipped and *buttoned* them
h. alone
i. in the dark
before coming upstairs for support.

3. For someone aged 2.75 years, who only transitioned to the full-size toilet 2 months ago, this is equivalent to leading a mission to Mars.

Here's the kicker: she sees this as a failure. As she's not ashamed of poop itself, or us helping to clean her up, I'm not even sure what standard it is she's envisioned and not met.

I have no idea how to even begin to address this.

Comments

Failure ...

[noelleleithe.livejournal.com]

She didn't make it to the potty. Everything else is irrelevant in her little mind, poor thing. :(

I don't know that I can help address it, but it might work to explain to her that even grown-ups have accidents sometimes. Our bodies aren't perfect at any age.

Re: Failure ...

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

Considering my mom's candid frankness on the subject, she should know that already!

Poor munchkin: pass/fail thinking should never be on such a harsh curve.

[leiliaxf.livejournal.com]

awwww bless her! I've got no advice here, since I have no spawn, but awwwww.

I wanna give her a big hug and let her know it's okay.

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what we did 8 )

[timesink.livejournal.com]

Well, but in her mind, she did fail. Pretty much all you can do is tell her she did her best, and you know she'll make it in time next time. It won't make her happy, especially if she's got a perfectionist streak, but seriously, it's all you *can* say. It just takes time, and she'll get it.

And at least she was neat with her poop, so points to her. {g}

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

Thank you. We're quite off-kilter with how she's taking this as a FAIL, considering that we see it as a huge WIN.

[timesink.livejournal.com]

Kids are pretty binary. And poop-focused. {g} The rest of it means nothing to her -- too many extraneous details -- although it is pretty damn cool.

[loligo.livejournal.com]

Wow. Yeah. I got nothin'. My own child of equivalent age doesn't even speak intelligibly half the time, and he mostly likes to smash things and endanger himself.

Actually, Chuckles does have a perfectionist streak in certain situations. She's very hesitant to try new things because she wants to be perfect at them right away, and she doesn't like to be directly taught anything because that implies that she doesn't already *know* something (she tolerates it at school because that's their job there, but she hates it at home). So with games and sports that we think she might enjoy, what Andy and I tend to do is to play them with each other, explaining them to each other as we go. Chuckles will usually pay attention to what we're doing and then try it on her own when no one's looking.

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

Squeaky's gift for danger is a superpower.

We've been trying to be strategic about praising her, focusing on her effort and the process of learning, in part to keep from nurturing the kind of perfectionism my brother and I had to wrestle with, in part to prepare her for meeting challenges later on.

That's a good idea, to model things offhand and give her space to workshop privately if she wants.

[haphazardmethod.livejournal.com]

Wow. I don't think I would know how to begin with this. Sys' perfectionist standard seems to be set by comparing herself to her older brother, so my strategy has been to emphasize how amazing she is and what amazing things she can do for a 4 year old. That's obviously not going to work for you. I wish I had something more useful to say than, good luck!

[haphazardmethod.livejournal.com]

A-ha! That sounds like Sys! I may try this "explain it in her hearing but not *to* her" strategy. Thanks!

[ropo.livejournal.com]

Poor wee CMonkey! Since she's such a smart cookie, maybe explain it to her like you explained it to us -- tell her all the stuff she did right, and how proud you are of her for doing all that all by herself. Or something.

She's gonna be a handful, isn't she? ;-)

Hope 2 through 4 in your list above let up for you, too.

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

She's spookysmart--and since she's developing Mr. F's charismatic emotional intelligence, all we can do is make sure she keeps talking to us and trusting us with what's going on in her head.

But yeah, we're going to be running to keep up with her.

[veritykindle.livejournal.com]

For someone aged 2.75 years, who only transitioned to the full-size toilet 2 months ago, this is equivalent to leading a mission to Mars.

Wow. Seriously. I don't have any children myself, but I've seen both my niece and nephew at that age, and I can't imagine either of them managing anything close to that! That's really impressive!

As for how to address it - maybe you could just praise her and tell her what a good job she did, and how impressed you are with the fact that she'd changed all by herself and tried to make it to the potty? You know, just positive reinforcement, celebrating what she did as the accomplishment it was, and making it very clear know that you don't think that she has anything at all to feel bad about, even if she does?

I mean, I don't think that would address everything, but maybe it would be a way to start? Jest emphasize how proud of her you are, and show her that she has nothing to feel ashamed about?

Then again, I'm hardly an authority on the subject, so anything I say should be taken with a very large grain of salt. I just wanted to say how much I personally am impressed by how awesome and smart and independent CMonkey is. ♥

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

*hugs you*

This is why I posted my dilemma--there are so many folks here who *are* brilliant, plus those who also have brilliant kids, I figured if there was any guidance to be had this was a good place to find it.

[sabaceanbabe.livejournal.com]

That is absolutely amazing and just a little hilarious. *sporfle* No advice whatsoever on how to handle it, but you really must be pretty proud of her. :)

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

I'm floored at her accomplishment! But when Mr. F related the story to my mom this morning, the kidlet was sad and ashamed--it's quite disturbing and I'm not sure how we can address reaction of hers this without making it worse.

But dude! Buttoned pants and all--I'm lucky not to hurt myself dressing in the dark.

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, I find it hard to dress myself when it's LIGHT. S

Really: kudos to the C-Monkey! And to you, it's so good to hear from you, too. Missed your voice, your insight into the crazy mystery that's real life.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Oh, poor kid. I had constipation growing up too, and I wish I'd had prunes, man.

She's so little, this might not be a level of rationale she can manage, but I'm guessing that her thoughts are going like this:

1. one poops in the potty only, not in diapers or one's pants.
2. she failed

If she's inclined to the perfectionism that you suspect, then you'll have to teach her how to equivocate since she doesn't have the instinct. So you'll have to tell her why it's okay this time, the specific events that lead you to not be mad at her, and the events that lead you to be proud. Recognized the gravitas of missing the potty too, since that is what she's using as a goal, but try to show her how the other things matter.

I'm not a parent, by the way, this is teaching stuff that I've learned mostly academically, since I don't deal with this age group. But a lot of teaching is teaching thought processes and logic as much as facts, so it might be a starting point for your brilliant little monkey.

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

I suspect you're right, that the sticking point is her current inability to handle ambiguity. Her level of cognition is pretty stellar, always has been, but she's still a wee one and deep in the throes of categorizing her world rather strictly.

Pass/fail, where the size of the clean-up is equal to the enormity of the failure. So a skidmark is easily shrugged off, but a massive cargo-dump (that *we* understand is even less controllable in this case) is a mortifying failure that even remarkable competence after the fact cannot salvage.

I appreciate these different perspectives!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

As people have been pointing out to me, as I step off the traditional career path for an academic, it's just as important to figure out what doesn't work. I had a feeling my perspective was, erm, way too old for a two-year-old, but maybe all our crazy, non-personal-experiences-with-Cmonkeys, ideas will trigger a brainstorm in you and you'll adapt and console her.

Also, really? She does *relative* pass/fail? At two?

Two P9s have the ability to breed a P12

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

On milestone charts, Cmonkey is operating at anywhere from 3-5 years of age.

We've constantly had to evaluate her capabilities and needs without recourse to regular development timelines or suggested age ranges--she could lift her head and look around the room the day she was born and she hasn't stopped pushing the envelope since.

She told her first joke at about five months: latching on to my elbow, giving a few sucks and then eyeing me with a Groucho Marx smile.

Recently she corrected her grandfather thus, "No, it's not a dinosaur book, it's a kid's book of dinosaurs."

She's working on expressions of emotion and time in her speech, "I did not realize he had toys at his house!" "We wait for the babies to come out of the pool and then we go in."

In short, I think she's the Kwisatz Haderach.

[scapeartist.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I find that if I relate tales of my own failure in a similar incident (mostly with Girlie--Monkey could give a rat's ass), that makes my spawn feel better. Lets them know that the other perfectionist they know bumbled occasionally and still manged to maintain perfection later. (haha)

She sounds like a good doobie. I was always grateful for how easy potty training was with both my kids--and each method was very telling of their personalities. Girlie trained by peer pressure (the older girls in her daycare room had big girl pants and she wanted them too) and Monkeyboy just decided one day that he was done with pull ups. That was it. Trained himself. These days he is designing jewelery with MacGyver-like ingenuity. He is convinced (thanks to more cartoons than I care to count) that all he needs to rule the world is a necklace that has power. He's almost there.

Good luck (and lots of hugs to you guys!!)