A mistake each, at a weekly meal

The activity

Once a week, at one meal, everyone says one thing they got wrong, starting with you. Nobody comments on anyone else’s.

What it is for. In our experience, a child who fears mistakes is helped more by hearing adults make them, calmly and often, than by being told mistakes do not matter.

• The first step. Explain it once, and keep it light: “Every week at this meal, we’re each going to say one thing we got wrong.”

When to get help. If your child’s fear of getting things wrong is stopping them from starting work, sleeping, or going to school, or their mood has been low for more than two weeks, talk to their school and your GP. If your child has hurt themselves, or talks about not wanting to be alive, stay calm, thank them if they have told you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day: help them ask the surgery for an urgent appointment, and if it is closed, use the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page. If your child tells you that someone is hurting them, stay calm, thank them for telling you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using those routes; if the person hurting your child lives in your home or your child’s other home, go straight to children’s social care or the police. If your child is badly hurt, or may have taken too much of a medicine, get medical help straight away, even if they seem well.

The other four steps, and your part in it, are in the library.

The sheet that goes with it comes with a subscription: Getting it wrong.

It goes with

• Perfectionism. For parents whose child can’t bear to get anything wrong.
• The 11+ Year. For parents whose child is preparing for school entrance exams.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full.

Free on this subject

• Perfectionism. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.
• Self-esteem. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.