The Perfect Thing for Your Little Perfectionist: Wreck this Journal

Any parent of a perfectionist knows how maddening it can be.  This is the child who is afraid to go to kindergarten because she doesn't know how to read yet.  The first grader who cries (literally) over spilled milk.  The fourth grader who refuses to go to the party because he might have to dance.  Call this behavior whatever you will--shy, insecure, unsure--but underneath you'll find a little person who desperately wants everything to be just right.

Enter Keri Smith.  This illustrator and author believes that play is the thing, and that we can get to our real living (and learning) when we throw conventions aside and give ourselves permission to not only explore, but to do it wrong.  To give up this perfect business entirely.  Her recent book Wreck this Journal is chock-full of exercises on how to systematically destroy, deface, doodle and damage each page--and even five minutes of giving yourself permission to violate all the rules is enough to send your inner perfectionist running out the door. 

I assumed this book was just for me--as an artist, I can get caught up in the trap of playing it too safe.  But what surprised and delighted me was finding my very cautious, never-make-a-false-move six year old completely riveted when he watched me do the exercises.  Over time he's asked me if he can try the "destroy book" too.  A few days of this and my soon-to-be kindergartner--who was too scared to pick up a pair of scissors or to touch something as scary as glue all through preschool--has been chopping and pasting and laughing out loud with glee the whole way. 

You'll have to pick up the book for yourself to see what I'm talking about--but keep in mind that this kind of permission to "do it wrong" might be just the thing your little one needs to break out of Perfectionist Prison and start learning and exploring in a way that brings true learning and joy.