Perfectionism

Allboy is a perfectionist.  It makes him and me crazy.  I think he believes that he should already know everything, and he beats himself up when he makes the smallest mistake.  I am not sure how to handle this because I don't have a perfectionism bone in my body.  In the words of Tim Gunn, I am a "make it work" type of person.  Allboy on the other hand is convinced that he should just know everything because he wants to.  He decided that it would be fun to learn cursive and since his other work was complete I figured it couldn't hurt.  But he didn't want to learn how to form letters, he just wants to write in cursive.  I explained that first you learn the letters and then you can make the words.  But instead he insisted that I give him a phrase and he would write it.  I gave him a phrase, he tried to write it, saw for himself that it wasn't working, and cried because he is a stupid big head.  Then he wouldn't calm down.  Anytime he makes a mistake in his writing or spelling he freaks.  Not when I point out an error because I rarely need to, but when he figures out something is less than perfect he goes into a tizzy.  I am to the point I don't even worry about grades or anything since I am right there with him and I know how he is doing without needing to record a grade or worry about it.  But he wants to know if he got everything right and then writes 100% on his papers.  If I show him something that is wrong he calls himself names.  I have tried to explain that  if he knew everything we were learning there wouldn't be any point in doing this at all, and that practice makes things easier.  He also gets upset with himself when he doesn't play football as well as he think he should.  I asked some other mom's about this and was surprised to find it was common.  Most kids get better at dealing with it, but most never completely get rid of it either.  I want to encourage him to work hard, take chances, and try new things even if he makes mistakes.  I think that is the best way to grow as a person.  But this might require me to rethink some of the strategies I use with him.  One suggestion is to reward hard work instead of excellence and to also tell him that something will take 10 tries before he is able to get it.  That way if he does something quickly he feels good about it but if it takes the 10 tries he doesn't feel bad about himself.  The strange thing is that he is wicked smart and as soon as a concept is explained he gets it and usually does better than expected.  I am shocked at how quickly he grasps new concepts.  I don't know whether it is just the right time, or I found the key to his learning style or a combination of both, but his growth this year is amazing.   He bought something at Gamestop today that cost 21.79 with his own money.  He knew that he was going to get .21 back without us ever having taught him to subtract that way.  He just figured that 1 penny would make 80 and then 20 more made a dollar.  All on his own.  Yet right before that he only wanted to give the man $21 to pay for his purchase and ignored the 79 cents.  So it isn't that he gets the entire concept, but the chunks he has are strong. 
I need to figure out how to encourage him without babying him or lowering expectations.  I also need to learn more patience.  I have discovered that when he begins beating up on himself that it is better for me to walk away until he gets himself under control.  He can't be argued out of it, and nothing can get accomplished when he is that upset.  I definitely have some more learning to do about this perfectionism thing.