Do you know the best ways to help kids cope with failure?
It seems with each passing year children are being pressured at a younger age to succeed in many areas of life, especially in school and sports but they need to know how to cope with failure. When there is pressure there will sometimes be stress and disappointment. While some pressure can be healthy for most kids and is part of life, sometimes expectations of parents, teachers, and coaches can be unrealistic.
Here are some ways to help kids cope with failure.
10 Best Ways to Help Kids Cope with Failure
Did You Do Your Best?
A good place to begin is with this question. If a child knows they did their best, you can tell them that’s the most important thing. They should have no worries about not getting an A, or not winning a game. When you apply yourself in any area of life and you don’t meet the highest expectations or score it’s okay. We are human and no one is perfect. No one wins all the time and no one aces every single test in their life.
Even Champions Lose
This is another valuable tool to use. Kids need to know the stories of the champions of the world. The people who are successful and how they struggled along the way. The MVP of the Super Bowl probably failed a test at some point or the CEO of a fortune 500 company likely lost a game of tennis. It’s good to see how we all share in disappointment and even the best of the best have gone through it and persevered.
Life Goes On
No one event, whether a test, or a game, or a dance, is as important as it seems. Kids need to know that life goes on even after something or someone lets them down.
There will be more challenges, ups and downs, and kids need to know that no one event is the end of the world. Disappointment is normal but it doesn’t need to last too long. A child can let it sink in and then move on from it after its been digested naturally. Ways to Help Kids Cope with Failure have to include the life lesson that life continues.
Try Harder Next Time
Maybe a child feels they didn’t give their best effort. In this case, there is a chance for redemption. A child can prepare more, study harder, focus on the task more fully. Here the disappointment can be used as motivation to achieve a better outcome next time around.
Society Isn’t The Boss Of You
Just because a certain result (A on test, championship etc) is valued so highly doesn’t mean a child has to always try and live up to those expectations. Each child is different and grows at a different rate. It’s not healthy to always be comparing kids and to instill in children this idea that they have a standard to live up to and if they don’t they will suffer the consequences. To achieve excellence is a unique challenge and can’t always be demonstrated by society’s standards of success.
Express Sympathy And Understanding
The first thing you want to let your child know is you understand how they feel. It’s not a good idea to drag your own personal stories out to make them feel better. It won’t. More than likely, they’ll get annoyed and want to focus on themselves. And they should get a chance to wallow in the sad feelings. Just telling them you get it will probably be enough.
Express Love as a Ways to Help Kids Cope with Failure
Make sure your kids know you love them when they’re up and you love them when they’re down. Some children might feel their worth is attached to their wins and loses. Make sure your kids know you love them no matter how many ribbons and trophies line the mantle. This is so important! They really need to know that they have your unconditional love.
Ways to Help Kids Cope with Failure – Perspective
The first thing you can do for your child after a setback is to help them understand the negative in the positive. There is always something which can be pulled from a bad experience that is truly good. Ask them if they learned something about themselves? Ask them how they could do things in a different way next time. If you stress that this was a learning experience and to look for the good points, however few there might be, you’ll probably get through to them. Try really hard to remain positive and it might rub off and help them feel better.
No One Wins Every Time
Sometimes kids feel they must be the best and win at every single thing. Let them know that this isn’t so. It’s just a fact. Someone will win and someone will lose. And not a single soul on the planet gets it right every single time. And it’s truly okay!
Letting Go
If your child can’t seem to let go of the disappointment, you need to try to get across that wallowing for a day or two is quite all right but more than that, needs to be addressed. After a major disappointment some kids stop trying. Don’t let that happen. Gently try to get them to keep trying because otherwise, you might end up with someone who too anxious and self-conscious to do new things. And you certainly don’t want this to happen.
Ways to Help Kids Cope with Failure have to include letting go and getting on.
