Let Them Struggle
We aren’t supposed to make our kids happy all the time. This is not our job.
Our job is to support our children when they aren’t happy, so they can begin to prepare themselves to cope with the unhappiness on their own for the rest of their lives.
This means we have to be able to tolerate their struggles and frustration, to model how to do this, and to build resilience, so they learn to they can get comfortable in the uncomfortable.
Our instinct is to eliminate the struggle and mitigate the frustration but where’s the growth in that?
I know it’s hard to witness, endure and sit through. Especially when we know how to fix it, and it seems if we do, things will be easier for everyone…
This is when we need to hold the long-term in view. In the long term, this only makes things harder on us and them. We want to increase our tolerance of their struggles so they have lots of practice managing and living through their frustration.
Some ideas on how to do this:
-Ask probing questions to help them get to their own answers
-Let them make the wrong choice as long as it’s safe and when it backfires, be there with empathy and understanding, not judgement
-Don’t give advice even when you have some; let them come up with their own ideas
-Don’t swoop in to help with homework, fix the broken tower or help them tie their shoe. Tell them you know they can do it!
