Do you have a student that is a perfectionist?  Do they have difficulty coping with miscues or mistakes throughout the school day?  I hear ya!  This can be difficult to navigate in the classroom.

Sometimes we need to teach students that mistakes are okay. 

A few years ago, I had a student that would have difficulty coping with minor things going wrong.  He would get so upset if he didn’t write his lowercase letters neatly enough or if his paper got bent at the corner.  He would act out irrationally – his reaction did not match the size of the problem.

I needed to find a way to turn this negative feeling into a positive one.  Explaining that mistakes are a learning experience that helps us do better next time may help your student cope with making mistakes.

A simple explanation that mistakes are okay may work for some students, but not all.  This former student needed a robust way to be redirected when these instances occurred.  So, I got an idea!  I ran to the school’s die-cut machine and cut out the words “Celebrate Our Mistakes.” I quickly hung the phrase on my classroom wall.

The next time one of my students made a mistake, I shouted, “hooray!” The student wrote their mistake on a post-it and stuck it on the wall.  The entire class cheered for him, and he forgot that he was upset.  It was an excellent redirection tool and a great way to celebrate being imperfect!

The “Celebrate Our Mistakes” wall was simply a way to redirect the behavior into something positive.  Some students with autism or OCD may exhibit perfectionist tendencies, like my student.  However, it is essential to recognize if something more serious is happening. 

According to the Cleveland Clinic, Atelophobia is an “obsessive fear of imperfection.  Someone with this condition is terrified of making mistakes.  They tend to avoid any situation where they feel they won’t succeed.”  Someone with Atelophobia may have panic attacks when they make a mistake. 

If you are unsure whether the situation is perfectionism vs. atelophobia, talk to your school counselor or psychologist or encourage the parent to describe the student’s behavior to their health care provider.