Our son, Greyson, got to play in the championship series for his basketball league when he was 9 years old and after a win followed by two close losses, his team ended up in second place. He was so bummed (tears) and when he came down from the team locker chat, he immediately asked for me to check his grades (which meant he wanted to know if he was able to play his gaming device).
I understood right away that he was feeling disappointed and he wanted to get away from that feeling as soon as possible.
But I’m his momma, and I need to constantly be playing the long game.
So, I told him no. No I wouldn’t check his grades because no matter what he had in there, we weren’t going to go home and distract ourselves from feeling bad. We were going to feel this for a little while so we remember how it feels to lose, to be disappointed and we can work out feeling better together.
And we went home and called a screen free break and we figured our way through the disappointment. Grey whined/cried for awhile (both about losing and about not getting a distraction in the form of a screen). We made and ate lunch together, the kids had some chores to do, the kids played together around the house, and we talked about the game and about whatever else came to our minds. We figured it out until everyone seemed back to balance again.
Seeing him sit in disappointment was not easy for me as his mom, BUT…
I also know that in the long run, it is important for him to learn to cope with feelings of disappointment. He needs to know how to deal with those feelings.
The thing is – we live in a world of readily available distraction – literally at our fingertips. As a high school teacher (and the wife of a varsity basketball coach), I see every single day the way kids don’t have the coping skills to deal with disappointment or adversity. At the first blip of a challenge, more often than not, my students’ first instinct is to shut down.
Many times, students will go so far as to try to remove themselves from even the possibility of failure; if they try they might fail – but if they don’t try at all they won’t fail (nor will they succeed but the risk of failure is great enough that the possibility of success doesn’t matter).
We need to help kids get comfortable with the uncomfortability of failing.
How to intentionally parent your kid disappointment
- Give the feeling a name
Talk with each other about what it feels like inside (maybe sad mixed with mad). Talk about the physical effects they might have. Give examples that you experience (“My heart feels heavy and pinched when I’m disappointed”)
- Explain that being disappointed is a feeling
Confirm that feelings come and go. You will not always feel like this, but they will again someday. Disappointed is a feeling that comes and goes quite a bit in life.
- Talk about the varying degrees of disappointment
Some disappointments are pretty big and might take awhile to go away – like missing a friend’s birthday party they were looking forward to, or breaking a favorite toy. And lots of disappointment goes away easy like having to do something you didn’t really feel like doing (like wearing a coat when it’s cold outside)
- Talk about a time that you were disappointed
Make it a big one. It helps kids see you as a real life human being with feelings. But always gives them reference that you get through it and move on in a productive way.
- Remind them they are just like everyone else
Everyone experiences disappointment, and usually several times a day. Being human means sometimes getting what you want and lots of times, not. The more you practice working through the disappointment, the easier it keeps getting!
This is not the fun part of parenting, but this is critically important if we want our kids to grow their coping muscles as they continue to encounter disappointment in many different ways and scenarios. And this isn’t a one time conversation – we are always talking it out and reminding when we see our kids are struggling with disappointment or other challenging feelings.
And let’s be honest – kids are constantly looking to us as models. So, maybe step one is reflecting on our own coping mechanisms for disappointment. Do you shout or get angry? Do you zone out and distract yourself? How can we be better models of productive ways to work through disappointment to help our kids learn from our life.
Try to keep in mind and heart that some minor emotional discomfort will strengthen their backbone for the future. Those get-back-up-after-defeat muscles need stretched and toned for the million more times in life that they are going to need worked.
We need to practice with small disappointments now so that when the losses are bigger and weigh more, our kids will be able to withstand them; whether we are there to help or not.
We gotta play the long game, mommas and daddas.
