The school year has begun in earnest and the learning is well under way. The more deeply we delve into various learning and social opportunities, the more likely it is that your child will experience occasions where things do not go as they had hoped, wished or wanted. Learning to deal with disappointment is a necessary skill for all human beings because in life we know that there are many times when we do not get what we want. The song by the Rolling Stones, "You Can't Always Get What You Want", captures the essence of some of the difficult experiences that we all have in life. As parents and teachers we must help our children understand that sometimes despite how hard we try, how good we are at something, or how much we want something to happen, things do not go as we planned. In those situations, the modelling that we do as adults for our children will either enhance resiliency skills or increase dependency on adults to make things right.
One of the very important lessons that we must impart to our children is that fair and equal are not one and the same. When we make decisions as parents and as teachers, there are a whole host of factors that come into play. For example, in selecting students to participate on sports team, physical skill and expertise are not the only things that are taken into consideration. Teachers and coaches look at the whole child and each individual child to determine whose needs would be best met by being selected for a team. A child who does not possess a great deal of skill or expertise in a paticular sport might be selected over a student who is engaged competitively in the sport outside of school. Reasons for the selection might range from the manner in which the student approaches collaborating with team members, whether or not the student has access to organized sports of any kind outside of school, the number of times a student has been selected in the past, along with a host of other reasons. The same decision making process happens in all aspects of our classroms, including how groups are selected for learning opportunities, which additional activities and responsibilities will be offered to students, what learning activities are offered to students, etc.
It is very difficult for children to understand why someone might appear to get something he/she did not have access to. It is also very difficult for children to understand why it looks like some students are getting special treatement or consideration. As adults we must help our children understand that there are many things that go into a decision that is made and often the explanation of those reasons cannot be shared because it involves the learning and social profile of another person. Will this alleviate the feeling of disappointment or even rejection? Probably not. So what can we do, as adults to help our children understand that fair and equal are not necessarily the same and that sometimes disappointment will happen?
1. Talk to your children and affirm the feelings that they are having. Let them know that you understand how they feel and that it is OK to feel disappointed.
2. Encourage your children to keep trying. It is very easy to give up when first not selected or when a disappointment occurs. Resiliency is trying again and working hard to acheive a goal.
3. Encourage your children to speak to the teacher or the coach asking for an explanation, particularly one that is rooted in growth mindset...meaning asking what the student could have done better or needs to work on,
4. Avoid immediately reacting to your child's distress by tyring to make it right. It is natural for us to want to remove the hurt an disappointment from our children but fixing the problem for them instead of helping them work through it can be detrimental to the development of resilency skills.
5. Model for your children how to navigate disappointment. They watch us constantly and they learn from us.
For further reading on children and disappointment, please click the link below:
How to Help Children Deal with Disappointment
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