Regular readers will know that last week wasn’t one of my best weeks, and each day it really did feel like my lucky underpants were failing me. I had a good moan: to family, to the blog (!) and I feel much better now…
But you know, some days, it doesn’t seem to matter what you do; life conspires against you.
It’s frustrating. It’s demoralising. It’s limiting.
I am, on the whole a fairly cheerful person. I don’t like to be defeated by things. I particularly don’t like to be defeated by small irritations affecting my mood.
Whenever I find myself in one of those moods, or more specifically when I snap myself out of it, it occurs to me that learning to deal with these daily annoyances is a valuable lesson; and one that I need to help my children with.
Young children don’t deal well with frustration (actually, neither do most adults!). They can’t understand why things aren’t going their way. They don’t want to wait for things. They want to do everything and they want to do it now!
They lack patience; and to be fair I can’t really fault them for that, I do too.
Life is full of little limitations; small niggles, tiny frustrations; many for good reason.
But, for a child it must often feel like their day is a chorus of stop that, put it down, not now, no you can’t. They need to wait for snacks, wait for lunch, follow you around the supermarket, tag along on the school run. And sometimes they can’t paint right now, or do stickers immediately, or get the tea set down and have a dolls tea party this second.
Much as we might like to make the most of our time with our children, there is a day to day reality that can’t be ignored.
Learning how to get past frustration, losing, disappointment and upset is something we all have to do. Sometimes, even our lucky underpants don’t get us what we want, straight away. And sometimes, not at all.
I don’t believe that we should protect our children from all disappointment. That strikes me as doing them a disservice. We can’t always get our own way, we don’t always win. And, learning to lose with good grace is such an important life skill.
But, after my own frustrating week last week, I will perhaps consider how I deal with their frustrations; work on being more patient, more mindful of just how disappointing and irritating even small events can be. Look at ways to offset; to improve the situation. And, when there is nothing to be done; sit with them and help them deal with those emotions until they are able to do it themselves.
If I am allowed the luxury of a moan to make myself feel better, the least I can do is allow my children the same.
You can find this weeks #ThePrompt linky here. I do hope this quote inspired you; if nothing else, may it have reminded you of just how very excellent Calvin and Hobbes are!
Sorry to hear you’ve been having a tough time lately, i totally agree that even though our mothering instinct tries to take over and protect our kids from lifes disappointments we must let them experiences tough times otherwise we are setting them up to fail when the inevitable happens.
Ach, we all have bad weeks, don’t we? Much brighter this week :) It is important to let them fail isn’t it, we’ve stopped letting our oldest win every game we play as he is a terrible loser (probably our fault) and he needs to learn to be graceful in defeat!
I am amaze first with Calvin’s mind and his vocabulary =P
I was thinking should I name my son after him and then i got scared *kidding*
So true with frustrations and kids. We must not protect them from it but we must teach them how to handle pressure with grace. Of course its hard to do as I dont know how to do the grace part yet. But your post made a lot of sense and a thought provoking one too.
I’m not sure I’m very good at the grace part either, but knowing that is a start at least :)
This is such an important message, Sara. For children, problems feel impossibly large, and as adults, we sometimes forget to realise that. It is so crucial to gently teach them that life can be disappointing too.
Thank you Tarana. I think there are days when adults get overwhelmed by the small stuff too! But, helping our kids learn to deal with disappointment is so important x
You’re so right Sara, we need to equip our kids with tools to succeed in life. Teaching them to get passed the frustrations without having major meltdowns is the first step, and this probably continues as they grow up. If they have decent coping mechanisms early on they’ll be able to put them into action for the rest of their lives xx
It’s so important, isn’t it?
Very true, often as adults we forget how frustrating being small can be. I also find this to be true with my teens as sometimes I forget the struggle of being not a child but not an adult and hormones and exams stress etc. and I just expect them to be cheerful and moan when they are not. I need to remember your words more often with them :-)
To be honest, I think it applies to us as adults too :)
Teaching children to deal with their frustrations is probably one of the first things we ever attempt as parents because the terrible twos is often to do with those first hard to handle feelings of being out of control and not getting what they want. Whether we always get the lesson right is another matter! :-)
That is very true, I think we’re doing okay, but a little more understanding of their frustrations wouldn’t go amiss!
I am very impatient by nature. And as you say, like a good moan when things aren’t going my way. Now that J is getting a bit older, I am beginning to understand the need to be calm and patient around him. For children do learn by imitating adults. Last thing I want is for my shortcomings to rub off on him.
They really do, but it occurs to me that sometimes a moan is justified and we’re awfully quick to give our kids a row for it!
I completely agree! A good moan is good for the soul, why should it be any different for children? (It’s when they all do at the same time I struggle!!)
Hope next week is a better one x
Yes, constant whining is a no-no; but a justified moan, that has to be okay really!
Personally think I could do with learning more coping measures for frustration, and could definitely do with passing some of these tools onto my seven year old:)
I’m with you on that one :)
I need to remind myself of this very same thing. It’s soooo frustrating when children moan on about not getting their own way. But then, I feel pretty cross when I don’t get my won way, either – so you can’t blame them for throwing a wobbly every now and then. They’re only little! Great post.
I know, that’s just it, isn’t it? We expect them to just learn to deal with frustration when us adults aren’t really very good at it either!
I think helping our children learn how to handle their emotions is so important. It was an area I was really interested in working on as a teacher, and so many people dismissed it as something that kids should just be able to do – perhaps unsurprisingly they were often pretty rubbish at handling their own emotions as adults… Frustration and disappointment are natural side effects of attempting to live life to the full – but that doesn’t necessarily make them any easier to handle! x
I know, I’m still a bit rubbish at it sometimes so I don’t know why we expect our kids to do it better than us, without helping them learn how to channel their emotions x
You say you want #ThePrompt to make people stop and think, and this post has. We’ve had one of ‘those’ days and I have probably not thought about the frustrations the children were having as I was having mine! You’re right, we as adults do have our different ways to let off steam – a good natter, a text conversation with best friends or a blog ramble, whereas the little ones don’t have any of that, they have us. I agree with you, we should give them their space to vent at times, as opposed to trying to supress it because we don’t like to hear it. We all get frustrated at times but it’s a difficult emotion to express as it can come at any time, and what may frustrate me may not someone else so it can also be difficult to understand. Helping our children understand this emotion & how best they can deal with it is important and taking time out of our busy, frustrated lives is what’s needed at times. Time is something which is more important to children than anything else – sometimes I need to remind myself about that! Great post xx
Thank you so much, that’s a wonderful thing for you to say x
I am so guilty of getting frustrated with the kids whining, when really they just need me to listen to them.
Such a good point. It’s so easy just to tell them off for moaning/whining, but actually they can often work their own way through disappointment (often better than the parent can).
I’m generally ok with telling N I’m not happy with the whining, or asking why he’s moaning, but otherwise try and leave him to it as that solves it. The OH can’t stand the whining and has a lot less patience, which then upsets N more at being told off for something that he probably just wants to get off his chest and can’t verbalise it any other way.
Hope things improve for you soon.
I can be quite impatient, and I also don’t deal very well with frustration, so I need to be more mindful of that when the kids are having a moment :)
This was a really interesting read, especially as I sit here feeling frustrated that I can’t seem to manage to fit more into my days. I hope I can refelect on the frustration of my children and try to be more understanding. It sounds simple but in that moment it’s so hard isn’t it!
Very hard! It’s that that makes me realise I need to try and be more understanding, it is difficult though x
Fab post – we are all guilty of not paying enough attention to our children’s frustrations. They are just children and don’t know how to deal with it. So as you say patience is important. I sometimes find myself getting annoyed with my daughter when she is demanding of things there and then but a better way is to help her understand and cope. Thanks for sharing your thoughts – definitely something to think about.
Thank you, I know how easily I get frustrated, and I’m the grown up (allegedly!) so I try to remind myself how tough it is for kids x
Such a wise post, thanks for this, you are so right, we mustn’t brush off disappointment and ask our kids to pull themselves together, it’s important to learn how to deal with disappointment and sadness and realise life cannot always be easy or rosy. Loved this. Thanks for linking up to #brilliantblogposts
Thank you Vicki x Thanks for hosting x