Ways To Support Your Child Following A Major Disappointment

The general nature of the ebb and flow of life is simple - you're never on top for too long, and you're never on the bottom too long, we tend to float back and forth between the two extremes. Disappointment and failure are two aspects of living than cannot be escaped by children or adults, and are a good learning tool for both in coping with negativity. Whether a child is 6 or 60, a parent can help to relieve the sting of a major disappointment for their children by presenting an objective opinion of circumstances and outcomes in a given situation, and hopefully enlighten their children by letting them discover for themselves what went wrong. Being supportive as a parent requires no special skills, just and open mind and the ability to listen and disseminate an informed opinion in the appropriate time and with a gentile manner.

For younger children a major disappointment can be devastating, in that they tend to place undue importance on situations that many times do not warrant such consideration. While it is not necessary for a parent to be too aggressive in addressing disappointment in young children, it is beneficial to a child to be presented with "the big picture", and why a given disappointment is only a temporary setback in an otherwise long life. It is imperative that children realize that everyone loses at some point, and often times the reason is due to circumstances beyond personal control. This is not to imply that disappointment is to become routinely accepted, but there are times that there is not much to be done to prevent it's presence in our lives.

In older children or young adults, the scope and depth of disappointment is more intense and it's impact more distressing than in younger children. Because of the complexity of personal situations, disappointments are often more difficult to understand, assess and recover from as quickly as is assumed. An older child may turn to a parent for support when disappointed only to discover that their parent does not present an adequate answer to their dilemma. In this instance it is important for a parent to note openly that they are perplexed as well, and that perhaps together through dialog parent and child can figure it out as a team.

The most productive manner in which a parent can support a child following a major disappointment is to listen sympathetically with an open mind and heart. While parents don't always have all the answers, their children usually do - they just need the time necessary to discover the proper path to understanding.