How does your daughter handle
disappointments? When she scores low marks on a test that she works so hard
for, how does she respond? When she does
not make it into the school choir or the sports team, how does she handle
herself? Learning to deal with
disappointments is one of the most important life lessons.
Disappointments can trigger many different emotional
responses, such as frustrations, sadness, and anger. Such emotional responses are not only healthy
but essential. We learn to label,
express, and tolerate our feelings. We
learn that disappointments are not that scary because we will be okay, and we can
grow stronger as a result.
Sometimes we may ignore our emotions
because our families are not comfortable with emotions. As adults, we are so used to just think and
ignore our emotional cues. Children and
adolescents are generally more ready to share and express their feelings. But sometimes, children and adolescents feel
pressured to keep a socially acceptable façade and learn to behave properly in
certain cultural settings. They suppress their emotions short term and may even
repress it long term.
Creating an appropriate response to our
children’s disappointment is critical to their normal development. Some parents may jump in and rescue their
daughters from experiencing negative emotions. Some parents may try to shut down their
daughters’ emotional responses because they want their daughters to tough it
out. Optimal disappointment will help
our children learn about their own limitations, practice resiliency, and
ask for social and emotional support.
