At my wits end with a child's behavior problem, need advice...?

This would not be an exceptionally uncommon problem, especially in children who are perfectionistic in their personalities. Is your daughter the oldest or an only child? If so, this contributes significantly to the desire to want to do everything just right. At school, this is going to be an issue that her teacher is going to have to work on. Perhaps the school district has a behavioral specialist or a teaching consultant who can come in to the classroom to observe than give some suggestions to your daughter's teacher. Does she also do this at home? If not, than there may be some further investigation in to why she does this only at school. If she does do this at home as well, it may be helpful to give her some very clear expectations and than periodic reminders. For example, if she is going to get out the play doh before dinner, than you can say, "You have 1/2 hour to play with the play doh than we have to clean up for dinner." 15 minutes before clean up time you can remind her that it will be clean up time in 15 minutes. Than do a countdown at 10 minutes and 5. Depending on the severity of the situation, you may even have to initially do a minute by minute count down after 5. When time is up, you go to her and help her clean up. If she fusses or fights it, you acknowledge her desire to continue her activity, but reinforce that it is time to clean up now. The tricky part is that she is just beginning to get a feel for what time means. So, she really isn't going to have a good understanding of what constitutes 30 minutes or 15 minutes or 1 minute. Time management is an ongoing skill that even many adults haven't truly mastered. So, this may be an issue that your daughter faces for a long time. I think because the current situation with your daughter is so intense, that bringing in an educational specialist to observe and offer solutions may be the best course of action. ADDED: An idea just came to me that may be useful. Perhaps her teacher can give your daughter the responsibility of keeping time of the tasks. Using a timer can be a very useful (and cheap!) tool to help children. Typically it is used to help children stay on task, but it may work well to help your daugher move to a new task. If her teacher can give her a timer set to the appropriate time for clean up for the current task than it is her job to let the teacher know when time is up. A lot depends on your daughter's personality. Some children enjoy being given special responsibilities and others don't like to be singled out.

I have kids like that in my class too. Although it can be annoying, it really is great work ethic.

Depending on the routine of the class your daughter is in, perhaps the teacher can make a spot for her to set aside her current project so she can finish it later on in class. Not officially putting it away might make her feel better. She can go back to it when the current lesson is finished.

Or, see the teacher will allow her to take her work home. Set up a homework time right when she gets home from school, before supper, where she can finish her work. This way she can complete her task, and when she starts getting real homework, she is already in an Awesome routine.

Otherwise, it's unfortunately just a bad habit shes going to have to break. And bad habits don't always break easy!!

The teacher needs to give her advance warning, repeatedly, that the task will end soon. Like "In 10 minutes we will move on to... so finish up what you are working on" and give warnings every few minutes. In my daughter's Montessori kindergarten class, when it is time to put their work away, they ring a chime and then give the children time to finish and put stuff away. Your daughter's teacher may need to try some new ideas.

Often resting your brain, switching to a new activity, exercise, etc, can promote creativity. There was a good snipet on this in Wired in the Oct or Nov issue, but cant find it, if I can Ill repost, but know theres lots other out there on brain rest, exercise, etc Instead of looking at this as a behavior problem, present it more towards her as a way to improve her skills.

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