While we all know that being an adult is hard, being a child can also be hard. Especially when you consider how little life experience your children have, if they are facing something that’s hard for them, you might find that they get easily discouraged or disappointed and want to quit. But while you might relate to these feelings, teaching your children how to be resilient and determined while they’re young can be invaluable to them when they become adults.
So if you and your child even face a situation where they want to quit something they’ve made a commitment to, here are three things you can do to help your child get through this stage of wanting to give up.
Uncover Their Motivation
When your child expresses to you that they want to give up on something, one of the first things you should do is seek to uncover what their motivation for quitting really is.
For some kids, when things get challenging, it can seem much easier to just give up. In other situations, your child might be bored, not having as much fun as before, be having issues with friends or teammates, and more. When you know the entirety of the situation, you can then address the problem, not just the symptoms. With this knowledge, you might be able to work with your child in overcoming the issues and find happiness in their activity again.
Help Them Learn How To Deal With Being Discouraged
In the event that your child is feeling discouraged by their performance or how hard something seems, what can be helpful is for you to help them learn how to deal with this discouragement.
A great place to start is by learning how to do positive self-talk. If your child is being too hard on themselves, learning how to focus on the good and give themselves encouragement is vital. Additionally, if they simply need more help figuring out the fundamentals of what they’re trying to do, like how to hold a guitar pick or how to have more hand-eye coordination, working on those things with your child to improve their skill can be very helpful.
Give Them An End Date
Sometimes, things just won’t get any easier for your child. When this seems like the case, try to negotiate with your child to keep trying until a certain date. This might be until the end of their sports season or until their next performance. In some cases, things might improve. But even if they don’t, at least your child will have learned that they can do hard things and make it through the other side.
If your child is feeling discouraged and wants to give up on something they’re trying to learn or do, consider using the tips mentioned above to help get through this experience together.
Originally posted on March 7, 2022 @ 7:28 am