Afraid of Mistakes

I'm not sure why DD is afraid of making mistakes in math or other academic work, because she usually does just fine.  We've been very careful to praise both effort and achievement, because she is gifted academically, and perfectionism is a very real risk for her.

However, my sense is not that she's a perfectionist in the way gifted children are.  She knows very well that she's capable of failure, probably because of her ADHD.  I think it is more that she's anxious.  She sort of thinks that the world is going to end if she makes a mistake.  Its worse if she's hungry or tired.  Today we took a lunch break and all was well.

So, the planned approach is this:
1)  Ignore most mistakes, especially if they are in areas we haven't covered academically.  DH loves to point out all mistakes first, so this is going to take some convincing possibly, but hopefully he'll realize she can't learn it all all at once anyway.
2)  If the mistake can't be ignored, say, "Oops!  A mistake!  We can fix it!"


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