How To Help Your Child Cope With Failure

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Failures happen to everyone and everyone experiences them in their own way. Someone is afraid of failures, someone drives into depression any trouble, and someone quickly shakes off the troubles and runs through life further towards new joys and sorrows.

The experience of experiencing failures, situations when “everything is lost”, like any other life experience, is formed over the years. A person somehow comprehends many of the events that have taken place and draws conclusions about how to act in the future on the basis of what has happened now.

And everything begins, as you know, from childhood.

For example, a child is crying.

A common situation, he just unintentionally deleted his favorite game on his phone (he lost his phone, he was not invited to his birthday, etc.). I deleted it by accident. There are already many levels passed. This game meant a lot to him, he invested his love, time, hopes in it. And suddenly, at one point, she disappeared. And he weeps for the whole house. Life without a game in these seconds has no meaning, it is destroyed. His unintelligible cry translates simply: "Everything is lost! SOS!"

Naturally, the mother hears the cry and runs to the child. “Crying, so in trouble! In trouble, then we must save! This unconscious instinct to save his own child is usually clothed in several phrases that burst out of the mouth with lightning speed:

1. "Don't pay attention to such nonsense!" For mom, playing remotely is a minor event, she knows that there are worse cases in life. Such knowledge obscures from the mother the fact that her child has already paid attention to this event, and this event caused tears in him, for him it is not nonsense, but a tragedy, failure. And since he cries so much, it means that the event upset him very much. Mom's interpretation of the event devalues the significance of what happened. Thanks to such a phrase, the child has the experience of devaluing his own experiences, deeds and meanings.

2. “Don't cry, you're a boy, boys don't cry! Don't cry, you're a girl, your complexion will get worse! " Sometimes our body reacts faster than we can understand how we feel or how we relate to something. For example, you start to feel sick from a repetitive conversation, as if you want to get rid of such repetitive situations, most likely you do not like what is happening, you are irritated or in despair. But to understand this, you need to think about it, and people often just endure or take pills. Usually, if the heart begins to beat faster, a person feels anxious, sweaty hands - fear, tears flow - grieve, disappointment. At consultations, sometimes people start crying unexpectedly, and when you draw a person's attention to tears with the question: "Do you have tears at these words, what could it mean?" - you get in response: "I don't know, just tears are rolling, usually I never cry." Clarifying, it turns out that the person had no idea that these or those events were so significant and wounded his soul at one time. So, if a child is crying, it means that he feels mental pain, suffering, grief, disappointment. The advice “not to cry” does not help him to get acquainted with the feelings that overwhelm the soul, to understand and experience them, but it blocks even the primary bodily manifestations of feelings. Thus, isolation from feelings is formed and psychosomatic diseases develop. By the way, it is very important to pay attention to the bodily sensations of both yours and the child: bodily sensations never deceive.

3. "I'll put you a new game, don't be upset!" Saving the child in such a way as if deleting the period of failure with the "Delete" key. Upset - new on you, upset again - next on you. Just don’t be upset, don’t shout, don’t cry. The part of life called "failure" is shut down, remains unlived, undisclosed, and meaningless. On the one hand, for a while it saves from contact with feelings of pain. However, at the beginning of the article we said that life is a series of successes and failures, without one thing it is not real life, but artificially made. Artificial life, that everything can be lived without grief and replaced with something else, ends in a moment. It turns out that the person with whom you would like to live your life - chose another or that you will not have children, or … Life will show that there is something irreplaceable and then you will have to face all the unknown unpleasant feelings at once.

4. "Everything will be fine." Naturally, everything will be fine. And again: "Everything will change - there will be flour." And many more such phrases give the child confidence that life will improve. Only the way to improve life remains one: someone says that everything will work out, and the person relies on these words. This forms dependence on the opinions of others. And children turn into adults who need someone to say all the time that everything will be fine, motivate them, persuade them.

So, we noticed that every saving phrase after: “Everything is lost!”, Which is aimed at improving the child's condition, has a downside. On the one hand, it helps to cope with the current situation, and on the other hand, if you look at it from the outside, as if it even hurts - it blocks feelings, devalues them, develops dependence on the opinion of another.

And these are all phrases - "rescuers"! But there is also a direct negative experience of experiencing failure. It happens that a child shares his experiences with loved ones, and he is punished with a belt for tears and snot, shares his fears and fears, and they laugh at him - and life experience appears to hide his feelings from prying eyes and ears, beware of new beginnings after failure, be wary to people.

What then to tell the child and is it possible to help?

Of course.

So, the main drawback of all the above rescue tips is ignoring the feelings that have arisen

Usually, this comes from the fact that:

Firstly, mom (grandmother, dad, anyone), when her child is very upset, angry, discouraged about something, she herself emotionally reacts to it! Mom at this moment can also feel upset, confusion, helplessness, fright. It happens unexpectedly, spontaneously, unplanned. At such moments, it can be difficult for a mother to cope with her feelings, not that to withstand and support a small child in the experiences. Therefore, the mother can be "flooded", overwhelmed by reciprocal feelings - she can be afraid that the child is crying, get angry that it happened so at the wrong time, upset that the child does not react the way she would like. Accordingly, in such a situation, the mother will not help the child, but express her intensity of feelings. Or the mother can isolate herself from her feelings and become a robot advisor who knows how the child should react correctly now. That is, unconsciously quickly jumps out into the state of a knowledgeable, domineering person - in such a position it is more comfortable. Or maybe both.

Secondly, because mom herself was told so when she was upset, and she has no other skills in helping an upset child in her arsenal.

What does a child need, and indeed any upset person, really? What can help him?

1. A child needs a person next to whom he can EXPERIENCE all the feelings that are caused by failure and create internal resources to live on without a lost game, without an invitation to a birthday, etc. Try to act out of this childish desire

Once during a session a woman asked me: "How is it to EXPERIENCE?"

To experience is to feel everything that fills the soul, to call these feelings in words, to comprehend, to give time to change the palette of feelings, to experience different feelings. After all, everything flows, everything changes.(Even when people turn to me with attacks of panic attacks, we emphasize that panic attacks also have an end: anxiety sooner or later gives way to calmness). Everything has an end - and any grief will be replaced by joy, just give it time.

For example, if a child is crying, you can tell him:

- Are you in pain now?

- Yes!

- Are you upset?

- Very!

- Where does it hurt?

- Here, in the shower.

2. To give the understanding that he is not alone in his experiences, it is normal to experience disappointment, grief, irritation. All these feelings are normal human experiences and without them life is not complete

- Yes, it happens. All people sometimes lose what is dear to them and experience pain.

- And you?

- And I.

- And dad?

- And dad. These are very unpleasant moments in life. I remember some of them. I was in a lot of pain and I was as upset as you are.

3. Support the child in his search for new opportunities and new desires, meanings. You can share what your experience of experiencing losses and unfortunate periods of life was like

- And how did you live then? How should I be now?

- I had it like this. Now let's think about what to do for you. What do you regret the most?

- That all accumulated points were not saved.

- Yes, the points were not saved. Are you sorry?

- Yes very!

- I also. However, you haven't lost everything.

- How?

- You still have experience. Experience in achieving results, you can do it faster and better. This experience has not disappeared and will not disappear, because it is in your head. Always with you. And you can always achieve the same results using this very experience if you want to play the game again. Would you like to continue playing?

- I don’t know, I’ll think about it.

- Of course, think about it.

- Is it easier for you? Have you calmed down?

- Yes.

4. Translate what happened into a life experience. This is possible if, after a while, return with the child to a conversation about what happened and draw his attention to the fact that life is beautiful again, despite the fact that some time ago he cried, but experienced this grief

- You're having fun?

-Yes.

- You see, you have coped with such a difficult situation, life goes on and you are cheerful again. And more recently he was crying, he was upset. This means that you can already experience such strong feelings as grief and regret.

If in childhood a child experiences failure, despair and hopelessness, when “everything is lost” and learns to find new meanings and ways for further life, then his life will not be shattered every time for every reason.

But for this, someone from close people must provide the child with the opportunity to feel and experience life's drama from beginning to end. Thus, in the bitter moments of life, the little man gains the courage to live on with the hope for the best. To live, not relying on my mother's opinion, but developing my own understanding about this. This is how you get your own free experience of experiencing failure, and not forced or suggested by someone.

If an adult has no such positive childhood life experience, if this muscle has not been pumped up and sometimes there are feelings that failures are not receding, that “life is shattered and the earth is leaving from under his feet,” and there is no one to lean on if such a position affairs sucks mental strength and steals vital energy - it does not matter either.

In adulthood, a psychologist helps to acquire such life experience. Indeed, it is at such moments of failure and inability to survive the grief and disappointment of life that many first turn to psychologists in order to continue living differently than before.

Also, the experience of working with a psychologist will be useful for the mothers themselves. It happens that theoretical knowledge appears, but it is impossible to communicate with the child in another way. There is still some kind of obstacle. This stems from the fact that it is not enough to have knowledge of what to say at a certain moment, there is a need to learn to experience oneself and the child at the same time in such situations. In order to become an assistant for a child in experiencing difficult life situations, which means feelings that are strong in emotional intensity, you must first learn to withstand your strong feelings yourself, and not react to the emotions of others with reciprocal aggression, fear or isolation from feelings and dry advice.

A psychologist will help to learn to be a feeling and empathic mother in any situations, who is able to teach her child to experience any feelings.

Psychologist Svetlana Ripka