My daughter does the same kind of thing with her school work. She's 9. She's a really smart kid, so I think she has it in her mind that she must excell in everything. Both her mom and I have degrees, but her mom was valedictorian of her class whereas I'm the one who took 11 years and poor grades. I even had bad ACT and SAT scores. So I use that to my advantage when I tell her that grades and perfect scores mean very little in school. I tell her, "you can come home with straight C's and D's and I'll still love you, grades don't really matter until high school, and that's only when you want to get *in* to college." My point being, try not to account for the possibility of perfectionism or OCD, just help him change his thinking into a more positive one. I flat out tell ny daughter, "I don't care what your grades are, cuz look at your dad, they don't matter, and I'm still successful! I just want you to be happy." My daughter tells me she doesn't want to disappoint me in missing any marks. Your son may feel the same way?

For me, I just want my kid to do her best and not sweat the small stuff because in the end, it really doesn't matter anymore. The falsehoods circulating academia sets kids up to win or fail, and if they "fail", they are supposed to be ashamed of themselves for "not trying harder". I simply remove that burden from my daughter in the beginning and so far it's working!

Hope that helps, and good luck!