“Dealing with Disappointment”
Parents love sharing good news with a child. Sharing good news with a child allows the parent to do what they love best – make their children happy. When a parent can make their happy they feel fulfilled. A parent generally views their role as their child’s provider, and making a child happy is the ultimate proof that a parent is doing what they are supposed to do.
When a parent disappoints their child the exact opposite occurs. Instead of doing what they love, they are forced to do what they hate most – saddening their child. Can there be anything worse than seeing our children unhappy? A parent feels completely unfulfilled when they sadden their child. When disappointing their child, a parent feels lacking in their ability to provide for their child.
A child is disappointed when their expectations are raised. A child is trusting; they lack the skepticism that life’s experiences bring. Upon hearing impending good news, an adult braces themselves with a number of psychological defenses for a possible disappointment. An adult will immediately tell themselves that it’s possible that the event will never come to fruition. An adult will recount past shortcomings with the awareness that this too might fall short. A child has yet to experience sufficient disappointment to brace themselves. In their untainted trust, they are completely swept up by the coming joy.
No matter how hard a parent tries to follow through on their promises, it is inevitable that they will disappoint their child. Life has its ways of working out as Robert Burns wrote, “The best laid schemes of mice and men go often askew.” Better stated is the Yiddish phrase, “Man plans, God laughs.” Disappointing children is part of life.
What differentiates the child stuck in disappointment from the child who moves past their disappointment is how the parent handles informing their child of the let down. It is vital that a parent let their child down in a manner that will allow the child to recover from their disappointment in a non-traumatizing way.
To let our children down in a healthy manner, in a way in which they can respond in a positive way, a parent must set the context for the child. A parent should tell the child that most times good things happen, and those things happen because we work hard to ensure they will happen well. But in life there are times where we can’t control everything, and when the uncontrollable happens, we are disappointed because we didn’t get to do what we wanted. We can explain that it’s ok to be sad, even to cry because we didn’t get the thing we wanted or we didn’t get to do what we wanted to do. Parents should explain that dealing well when life throws us difficult situations makes us stronger and better people.
We must leave our child with hope and explain that hopefully next time we’ll get what we wanted. A parent should then ask their child to express their feelings, let them spell out their disappointment, and then comfort your child with a hug and a kiss, and maybe a sweet or something of that nature, that although it won’t completely placate your child, it will give your child hope.
Five tips to dealing well with disappointment.
1. Set the context for your child, explain how disappointment works.
2. Explain how we can control only so much, and sometimes life gives us situations we’d rather not have.
3. Tell our children that life’s disappointments make us stronger.
4. Ask our child to express their feelings of disappointment.
5. Hug, kiss and give our children something special so that they are confident in your love, and have hope for further good.
