You want to help your daughter relax and accept her work. However, you yourself are having some trouble modelling relaxation and acceptance. If you just relax and accept your daughter's feelings, she will see and feel this attitude of gentle acceptance. You can use the technique called "emotional coaching" (see John Gottman's book Raising an Emotional Intelligent Child or my book Raise Your Kids without Raising Your Voice for more details on this technique). Just name your daughter's feelings and ACCEPT them as they are. You can say something like, "You don't like your picture. You want to tear it all up and try again." Your daughter will relax a bit just from your relaxed observation. Naming and accepting feelings has been shown to help others clear troubled feelings out of their system. A good psychologist names and accepts his or her client's feelings and this relieves tremendous amounts of stress for them, as well as helping them to develop more compassion for themselves (a gentler, more self-accepting attitude). Now if your daughter is truly perfectionistic, emotional coaching will help her but not necessarily cure her of this tendency. At age 5, her impatience is within the normal range. However, if she continues to have impossible standards for herself over the next year or two, you can consult a mental health professional for assessment and, if necessary, treatment. One step that you can try even now, however, is Bach Flower Therapy. This harmless form of vibrational medicine can help a child achieve emotional balance (i.e. become less anxious, less angry, less rigid or whatever). There is a particular remedy called Rose Water that might be helpful for your daughter. You can look up Bach Flower Remedies or Bach Flower Therapy on-line or in one of the many Bach Flower Therapy books that are available to learn how to prepare the remedy. It is possible that Bach Flower can soften your daughter's self-critical attitude and impossible standards.  Good luck with this.   Sarah Chana