Disappointment need not be a big deal if we are prepared for it. Regularly, when I work with people in therapy where the focus is on difficult memories, I ask the person to describe what they notice. I have often remarked at how hard it is for people to notice what happens. Frequently, people only notice big or difficult events.
Noticing the good is not as easy as it sounds and takes practice. Parents can help their children to notice by commenting on what you see when out for a walk and by remarking on the small moments of beauty that catch our eye. This also helps us to be better observers of what happens in our own lives.
I remember getting my Inter Cert results, not because people noticed I did well in eight subjects but more because I did badly in maths. Some years ago, a retiring coroner remarked that he thought many ended their lives because they could not cope with failure.
Each of us experiences failure in life. We have to learn to live with that and – like being wrong or making a mistake – we need to have confidence in ourselves to accept and admit it before moving on. Where better to learn that skill than at home.
Children learn through what they experience every day. Life lessons are best mediated through experience. What a parent values will be noticed by a child and internalised as a lesson. This is true of our strengths as well as our difficulties or weaknesses.
A parent can model powerful and positive life lessons by how challenges are managed. When a child hears a parent say “I made a mess of that, oh well, I better start again”, that is a wonderful gift and helps children to learn that mistakes are ways we learn and don’t have to be a minor disaster.
From breaking a toy or taking something from a friend, a child at an early age can learn that mistakes have to be accepted and put right if at all possible.
There are many simple ways to lay the foundation for dealing with failure or with mistakes.
Children need to experience from a very early stage how to accept a parent saying no. A child who always gets what is expected will not learn to deal with waiting or with not getting his way, nearly as well as someone who knows what it is to be told ‘no’ and then not see their world fall apart as a result.
Parents need to remember that a child does not have the brain development or experience to make sense of what you might be thinking.
Experience
Children only understand what they see and experience. How you say no is critical to the child’s security and development. A good idea when saying no is to avoid seeming cross, but to make some sense of fun out of another choice happening.
Saying no will be accepted more easily when a child is used to spending some bit of fun time most days with a parent. The warmth of the everyday relationship makes it easier for the child to accept something he does not like. Similarly, when a child does not follow through on what is agreed or expected, there has to be a consequence that matters. Consequences need to be predictable but they also need to be fair and short lived.
Children learn easily to accept what they dislike when difficulties are resolved soon.
Parents need to remember that children cope best with harder life lessons when they are familiar with parents noticing what they do well. Why draw attention to the half tidied room instead of simply remarking on the shelf that was sorted out nicely. What will a child learn if told only what they did less well?
Notice what you like and a child will soon learn how to do more the same way. Notice only what is wrong and a child will develop a negative filter for self-image and for the world.
Projecting forward, a child who learns that it is alright not to be great at everything, but knows what they do really well, will cope better with disappointment and with not always succeeding.
Preparation for those experiences is best done with the ordinary events at home. Children need to learn about consequences and they need to know about right and wrong not because of a rule, but because they feel that it matters from the inside.
Importance
It sets a child up for being challenged as they mature and it also helps them to be patient with others who might be different or less able at some things. Where children learn that good is noticed, they too will learn the importance of seeing what is right or good in others.
Even in class group work accepting the view that is different will come more easily to a child who has been taught to notice what is positive and a strength, rather than weigh attention in favour of what is lacking. Values of fairness emerge from such formation. More importantly values of accepting when wrong or when a mistake is made also protect the mental health of a person when life is daunting.
Those are lessons that are hard to learn, but if begun in childhood when surrounded by parental love and security, it is a lot easier.
Dr Colm Humphries is a guest contributor. He is a clinical psychologist based at Philemon in Maynooth, Co. Kildare.