Dear Lizzie,
My first grader melts down when things get too hard for him and I’m finding myself doing a lot of things for him, just to avoid fallout. I know that’s not the best approach, but I don’t know how else to support him. Can you help?
Hi reader,
“Don’t cry, honey. I don’t want you to be disappointed. Here, I’ll get you a new one.”
Have you ever heard these words come out of your mouth? Probably! You are a parent who loves your kids so much. Their hurt is your hurt. Of course, you want to make their life easier. But I want to tell you something. You don’t need to protect your child from feeling disappointed. Instead, teach them how to cope with their feelings. When we fix things for them, our children miss out on learning important coping skills. Hard feelings can become even harder behaviors if we don’t learn to manage them appropriately. Rather than controlling situations to avoid meltdowns, walk through them with your child. It will serve you both. You might disagree, but keeping kids happy is not the goal. It’s not good for them or for you. Children need to practice handling situations that are less than ideal so they can become resilient in the face of setbacks and failures later on. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we should purposely make life hard for our children, life will do that all on its own. But it is our job as parents to help our children see themselves as capable, confident, contributing members of their community.
When you feel yourself jumping in to fix things during a hard moment for your child, take a pause and try one of these phrases instead:
“That looks really tricky. It’s okay to pause and take some deep breaths before you continue.”
“I can see how hard you are working on that.”
“You wish I would do it for you. I won’t do it for you but I will talk you through it.”
“You are still learning how to do that, so it makes sense that it’s not coming out perfectly.”
“What do you think the next best step might be?”
You don’t have to get this right all of the time. We’ve all gotten our tango on to sidestep an epic meltdown now and then.
Good luck!
Lizzie Assa is founder of The Workspace for Children, a parenting strategist, play expert and mother of three who lives in Marblehead.
