We all know that “Karen” for lack of better term that is always the first to complain when things don’t go her way. She’s the one that will sulk the rest of the day when plans get canceled and will stir up drama in every group she’s in trying to get people on board doing things her way… every time.
What if i told you that “Karen” was once an innocent child that simply was never taught to process disappointment? Well it’s true. Bratty adults were once innocent kids who, due to poor parenting, were allowed to act like brats each and every time they didn’t get their own way.
Now before I go any further, here’s a disclaimer. I’m far from a perfect parent, my child is far from being a perfect child, and we fail as a family over and over again. I’m simply sharing because knowledge isn’t enough if we never learn how to apply that knowledge.
My goal with the parenting section of this blog is to show you how to take the basic parenting principles we’ve all been taught, and actually apply them to the messy, real life problems we all face.
Yesterday I had an opportunity to apply some knowledge in the area of parenting. When plans are cancelled, taking these five steps will teach your child (and possibly you) how to process the disappointment.
1. Acknowledge the emotion
2. Breathe
3. Talk through what just happened and decide if there are any other factors contributing to extra emotional sensitivity
4. Form a new plan together
5. Make the best of the situation
Let’s take a look at how this played out in real life yesterday.
It was Monday morning and we were all dressed and ready to head to the pool. Since we live in snowy Indiana, and swimming hasn’t been an option for several months, the excitement had been building ever since we booked this hotel room almost a month ago.
As we open the door to the pool, toys in hand and towels hanging from our arms, the maintenance man meets us to let us know that the pool is actually closed until later on in the afternoon due to some maintenance work.
Step 1:
I was impressed with Glori’s reaction while we chatted with the maintenance man. She was disappointed for sure, but no back talking or fit throwing (it only took 7 years to reach this point haha) but on the seemingly mile long walk back to the elevator, her tears flowed freely as she expressed how unfair it was. She spoke, she cried, she felt all of the big emotions inside of her little body, I listened.
Step 2:
I reminded her that sometimes these things happen, and while yes it was disappointing, it wouldn’t do any good to spend the next five hours upset over it, so we took a few min and breathed until she was calm. Notice what i didn’t do was say something along the lines of “stop crying, you’re not a baby, it’s not that big of a deal” or “if you don’t stop crying you’re going to be in trouble” (Again, never punish for emotions. It’s important to teach our kids to feel their emotions and process them, not simply push them down and ignore them.)
Step 3:
Once we got back to the hotel room and she was calm, we talked about the facts.
-The pool wasn’t closed all day, it was simply closed for the morning.
-We would still have plenty of time to swim later, we would just be flip flopping our schedule for a little while.
-We decided that Glori was a little more emotional that normal because we had a long trip, she hadn’t gotten her normal amount of sleep the night before, so it was best to use some of our new found time to take a short nap.
Step 4:
We reworked our schedule. This way she could see where we were moving the pool time to, what needed to get done before the pool time, and the overall flow of our “new” day.
Step 5:
We highlighted the positives. Majority of situations have something positive about them if we care to look.
-Glori would get a little extra sleep which would, in the long run, help her feel better.
-Because she had such a good attitude throughout the process, I let her have 30 min of tv time before she took her nap.
-Since we’d be getting the bulk of our stuff done before heading down to swim, we’d have a longer uninterrupted swim time than originally planned.
In the moment, facing disappointment is not always easy, but learning to cope with it is a MUST for both our children and ourselves.
What are some other ways you use to cope with disappointment?
