Dealing with Disappointment - When Life Gives You Lemon Sorbet...

I took my kids out for a rare afterschool treat at Baskin Robbins ice cream shop recently.  They could choose one scoop of any flavor they wanted, and were quite thrilled with all the yummy options.  My 5 year old immediately knew that she wanted chocolate chip cookie dough, but my 9 year old was hemming and hawing, overwhelmed with the choices and clearly taking her decision making seriously.  After settling on mint chip, her favorite, I was surprised when she suddenly asked the server for a taste of the lemon sorbet, and even more suprised when after tasting it, she asked for lemon sorbet as her single scoop.   As we sat down to enjoy our ice cream, it wasn't long before Zoe's enthusiasm for the tart treat quickly dissipated, and disappointment became the flavor du jour.  Tears of frustration streamed down her cheeks as she begged for another scoop, but instead of giving in I decided it was a good opportunity to try and teach her about how to cope with her disappointment. 

Over a few shared spoonfuls, we talked about how to be happy with what we have even if it isn't what we expected.  Some tips to helping your children manage their feelings of frustration and sadness are:

• Teach them to have realistic expectations
• Emphasize the importance of having a positive attitude in the face of disappointing circumstances
• Don't shelter kids from their mistakes or inadequacies
• Calmly talk them through disappointing experiences

 Elizabeth Crary's book "Dealing with Disappointment: Helping Kids Cope when Things Don't Go Their Way" gives additional practical, positive approaches with exercises and self calming tools and techniques to help your children understand and successfully manage the ups and downs in life.

While our ice cream outing turned sour initially, we were able to walk away with a better understanding of how to approach decision making and disappointment, and hopefully next time instead of tears we will have chocolate.