Helping Kids Manage Disappointment

“It’s Not Fair!” : Helping Kids Manage Disappointment

Disappointment is (unfortunately) a normal part of life. As adults, we have decades of practice managing that sinking feeling in our stomachs when things don’t pan out the way we expect. Children often have a tougher time with disappointment and feel overwhelmed by it. This can happen for several reasons, including having less life experience, still developing emotional regulation skills, emotions feeling too big for their little bodies, and challenges with flexibility and perspective-taking which make it difficult to see the bigger picture. 

Oftentimes, challenges with disappointment that children face present in ways such as losing a game, not getting invited to a play date or birthday party, not getting the role they wanted, or simply hearing the word “no.” As adults, we often want to remove the cause of the discomfort to help children feel better. However, the goal should not be to eliminate disappointment altogether but to help children build resilience by learning how to manage the discomfort that comes with disappointment.

What Doesn’t Help

It can be difficult to remember how challenging it was as a child to manage discomfort through the form of disappointment. While it can be tempting to immediately fix the problem, offer excessive reassurance, or an adult-perspective logic statement such as “It’s not a big deal,” these reactions to a child’s disappointment often result in the child feeling invalidated and “wrong” for experiencing such a reaction. Additionally, these responses may accidentally encourage the development of learned-helplessness, perpetuate reassurance-seeking behavior, or increase the frequency or duration of emotional dysregulation or meltdowns. 

What Does Help

First, validate the feeling. Not only does validating how the child feels help the child feel seen and heard, but it also normalizes emotional reactions and encourages communication and learning opportunities. By validating emotions, adults effectively model how to respond and communicate challenging feelings. 

Examples of validating statements that parents can use:

“I can see you’re really disappointed.”

and

“That wasn’t the outcome you were hoping for.”

Additionally, allow the feeling to exist. Disappointment isn’t dangerous. It’s uncomfortable, it doesn’t feel good, but it is not an unsafe experience that adults need to rescue the child from. Kids don’t need us to erase the difficult feelings for them. Instead, what children need from adults is normalization of the emotions as well as modeling for how to more easily manage them.

Ways that adults can model managing big feelings can be as simple as practicing “I-Statements” or simply naming the feeling and practicing an easy coping skill. For example, “I feel disappointed that I had to skip my turn, and I need to take a break from the game to feel better.” Alternately, an example of modeling positive emotional regulation could be, “I feel so frustrated. I’m going to take five deep breaths and try again.”

Next, help them name what happened. Helping the child name what caused the uncomfortable feeling assists in developing those communication skills. The easiest way I model this for children in session is by using the simple “I-Statement” formula and filling in the blanks. The “I-Statement” formula is:

“I feel ___ when ___ and I need ___.”

In session, I may say:

“I feel disappointed when I have to draw 4, and I need to practice rainbow breathing to feel better.”

Additional ways that adults can help children name what happened can be simple observation statements such as:

“You worked really hard and were hoping to win.”

or

“You were excited about that play date.”

Another thing that adults can do to help children manage disappointment is by focusing on coping rather than fixing. This is where that “and I need ___” part of the “I-Statement” formula comes in handy. Something important to keep in mind is when you offer coping skills as suggestions, limit it to two options in order to avoid overwhelming your child further with too many options. 

Examples of what could be said to help keep the focus on coping rather than fixing include:

“What would help you feel better right now?”

“Do you want a hug?”

“Want to draw it out?”

”Would you like to color, paint, or create something about how you’re feeling?”

“Would taking a walk help you feel better?”

Lastly, adults can help children manage disappointment by highlighting their resilience. I’ve heard parents use statements such as “Everything happens for a reason” and “You’ll be fine,” which have the intention of putting the problem and associated feelings in perspective; however, these kinds of statements can lead to the child feeling invalidated or “wrong” for experiencing the feeling in the first place. 

Instead, I often suggest easy one-liners such as:

“This is hard, and you’ve gotten through hard things before.”

and 

“This is challenging, and I know you can do challenging things.”

The Hidden Skill Behind Disappointment

In my experience, many children who struggle with frustration tolerance are actually struggling to manage disappointment underneath. Oftentimes, anger and/or frustration act as a protective response to the true feeling underneath. In session, we explore this with some additional psychoeducation to help the child understand themselves and their emotional responses better, as well as separate those challenging feelings from their sense of self or self-worth. 

In addition to helping children better manage frustration, children who learn how to better tolerate disappointment often show improved management of anxiety, perfectionist tendencies, confidence, problem-solving, as well as friendships and other relationships. Disappointment comes up naturally as we grow and experience life, so children learning earlier on how to manage disappointment and communicate their feelings and needs in a healthy and productive way leads to plentiful benefits throughout their lifetime.

Disappointment is an unavoidable part of childhood, but it is also an opportunity for growth. Each time children experience disappointment and receive support rather than rescue or dismissal, they learn an important lesson: difficult feelings are manageable. Over time, these experiences help children build confidence in their ability to handle life’s challenges, improve emotional regulation, and bounce back from setbacks.

If your child struggles with frustration, perfectionism, anxiety, or emotional regulation, therapy can help them build the skills needed to navigate life’s ups and downs with confidence. Art of Healing Therapy Center provides counseling and expressive therapy services for children, teens, and families in Clermont, Florida and surrounding communities.