You want the best for your kids – of course you do. As parents, we’re often tempted to help our kids avoid the pitfalls we experienced growing up – those stumbling blocks that might’ve prevented us from reaching our full potential. But research is showing more and more that shielding our kids from disappointments, heartache, frustrations, and failures – even when done with the best of intentions – is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. Those negative life lessons are actually some of the most important for creating perseverance and resilience – two huge predictors of success. OF COURSE, you should always protect your kids from physical harm and emotional abuse, but not necessarily from all the other unpleasant stuff out there. We’ve all heard extreme stories of parents working as “social engineers” for their kids, meaning that they purposefully orchestrate the environment for maximum popularity and success, and minimum disappointment. This includes parents who demand college professors change their kids’ grades, the mom in this story saving seats for her daughter and her daughter’s friends on the bus, and the parents who use connections to get opportunities for their kids instead of relying on practice and hard work. We’ve probably all requested certain buddies for our kids’ classes or extracurricular activities – harmless to an extent. The problem comes when our children start to expect that their social environment will always be a certain way…and then it’s not anymore.
In the real world, your child won’t always get “the best” boss and isn’t going to be surrounded by his closest friends at work. She will have to deal with people who annoy her, those she dislikes, and individuals who are different from her in some way. People will be disappointed in him. Angry at him. She will fail at things – repeatedly. Shielding kids from these things in childhood will make the reality so much more difficult to face. Kids who don’t deal with much adversity become adults who cannot deal with adversity. Instead, raise your children to be resilient so they can bounce back when faced with disappointment. Teach them the importance of being respectful and inclusive of others, no matter how they feel about them, so they can get along with a variety of people and appropriately handle criticism or correction. Here are some ideas for letting your kids take the social reins so you’re not overstepping:
1. Avoid making excuses for why your child didn’t win something or get a part/position he/she was hoping for. Sometimes we default to, “They’re just jealous” or “They must have felt sorry for that other kid so they let him win.” Accept, and encourage your child to accept, that she isn’t going to be the best at everything. Even when you can’t understand why she wasn’t chosen, recognizing that it happened and that there may have been a good reason for it will go a long way toward helping your child recover and be willing to try again. Better yet, encourage your child to congratulate and compliment the person who did win. See if you can come up together with some reasons that person was chosen and ideas your child might want to try for next time. It’s fine to ask for feedback from whoever did the choosing but avoid complaining that your child wasn’t picked.
2. Be thoughtful about invitations and posting on social media. You don’t have to invite your son’s entire class but if you invite 75% of the boys, you should go ahead and invite them all. Even the “problem child” you’re hoping your kid will avoid. Word will spread quickly about who was left out and that child will have to sit at the lunch table and listen to those included talk about how great the party’s going to be. You and your kid don’t have to love a classmate to hang out with him at the trampoline park for two hours. Remember, too, that the parents of anyone excluded may see your social media posts about the event. Put yourself in their shoes and imagine how it would feel to know that your child was left out when most in the class were invited. Think about how you would feel if it happened all the time.
3. If your child is playing a recreational sport, let it be a recreational sport. It’s not helpful to engineer the most dominant team possible through backchannels. It will be far more beneficial for your kid to lose some games and figure out how to handle it than for the team to be so great that they win every time.
4. If you commit to something, stick with it for a predetermined amount of time. This strategy helps keep your child from quitting everything just because it requires a little effort. If she decides she hates soccer after the second practice, it could be because she hasn’t played much and isn’t very good at it yet. Show her that skills take time and effort to learn but that the end result can be really rewarding. If she still hates soccer after the season ends, let her try something else but celebrate that she stuck it out and put forth effort.
5. If you want to take a dance class, sign up for a dance class. Don’t be so involved with your child’s dance class that they start charging you tuition. If your child is one of the rare, rare, rare (rare) few who has the talent, ambition, and drive to be truly excellent in his or her sport or craft, a supportive (and sometimes pushy) parent might be an asset. However, if your kid, like most every kid, could be pretty decent at something, let him get there on his own. Your job is to get her to class/practice and let the teachers and coaches do the rest.
6. On a related note, let your child hear negative feedback from adults who work with her (provided that it’s given in an appropriate way. Of course you shouldn’t put up with abuse). She refused to practice piano all week? No need to sugar coat it for her teacher. Your daughter may get an earful and then she can decide what she needs to do if she wants to avoid that kind of feedback in the future. You don’t need to email the teacher to explain why your kid’s assignment will be late/incomplete/written in crayon – he is perfectly capable of doing that. It’s not your job to rescue your kids from every tricky situation. Letting them experience the natural consequences is the best way for them to learn they need to take a different approach next time.
7. Read together stories about famous mistakes and failures (find a great list here). Talk about what would’ve happened if the individuals gave up after disappointment or because they didn’t like who they were working with. Talk about your own mistakes. Regularly ask your child to share mistakes he’s made and respond in a neutral to positive way. After all, mistakes are a valid method of learning and responding to them positively will teach kids resilience. For a great book about mistakes, check out The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes.
Kids who never fail become adults who are constantly being disappointed and disillusioned by life. You have the power to raise resilient children by helping them see that failure is unavoidable but that we might gain new knowledge and skills as a result. Listen to your child’s frustration and validate how she’s feeling. Empathize that the situation sounds tough but avoid making excuses for any problematic behavior on your child’s part. Remind your child (and yourself) that we will all have to deal with peers, teachers, and situations that we don’t like but that you believe your child can handle the discomfort. Take deep breaths to calm down, and then work together to problem-solve the situation. If you feel your child is being physically or emotionally harmed in some way, consider checking with another adult first to get his or her perspective. Definitely step in if necessary. Don’t be like the bus mom in that story. Be like the party mom who invited everyone. That situation may not be your kid’s ideal but it’s realistic. Knowing that she can handle it will put both your minds at ease that she’s on her way to a happy, successful life.
If you’re looking for ideas to help stop the bullying, and start spreading kindness, check out what some of these kids in our area are doing with their Kind is Cool movement.
About Kristen:
Kristen Berthiaume, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist with Grayson and Associates. She obtained her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Kentucky. She completed a predoctoral internship in clinical psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a post- doctoral fellowship in the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD) Program at Duke University Medical Center. She specializes in providing assessment and treatment of children, adolescents, and families dealing with the following issues: ADHD, learning disorders, social skill deficits, organizational problems, behavioral difficulties, anxiety, and depression. She generally focuses on behavioral and cognitive- behavioral techniques, but maintains a flexible approach to therapy. Her other day job is as mom to her daughters, ages seven and one, and four-year-old son.
