Pursuit of Perfection!

The last two weeks felt unusual for most of Aditya's friends.

For the last two weeks Aditya has been mostly drawing and coloring with the help of his friends. He has mostly been refusing to play any other games.

While coloring and drawing, he
1) was rigid (e.g. he had to draw a perfect square on a sheet of paper with not a single crease)
2) was controlling (if he wanted us to erase and fix something he wanted it quick!)
3) was frustrated with small mistakes like he or his friend drawing an "oval" shaped face rather than a "circle" face, after which he would crumple and throw away the paper (we joined by making a ball of our paper and throwing it away with force)
4) sometimes cried about how he did not like mistakes and how we should not make them again
5) would sometimes ask "are mistakes ok?" This last question offered expansion opportunities. On one such occasion I said "mistakes are fine" in response to which he said "is stealing stuff bad?" to which I said "it's fine if you are stealing from a bully". This led to a 10 minute chat about a bully in my middle school and how I stole his candy and returned it to him the next day and spoke to him about how it felt to him, to teach him a lesson. Not sure if this was in accordance with Son Rise principles... but I just followed my gut feelings, and it worked surprisingly well as in the end Aditya was laughing about how we taught the bully a lesson.

This phase of "perfection or frustration", lasted for almost two weeks.

In the last 2 days, though, we are seeing a different Aditya.

Especially yesterday!

Yesterday was special, we think, as Aditya displayed greater than usual composure in face of unexpected changes ("randomization" during song selection on the music player inside the car).

The other remarkable thing he did yesterday, was coloring a computer-printed picture (NOT a picture he had himself drawn), while making sure the colors stayed inside the boundaries... another thing he has rarely done before!

It may not be obvious, but coloring a picture drawn by somebody else suggests he was not looking for control. This reduced need to control became even more apparent when he tried to keep the colors within the boundaries of the things he was coloring (which again, were boundaries set by someone else, not him).