Help your child manage frustration by recognizing triggers, modeling calming techniques, and letting them experience challenges. Learning to cope with frustration builds important problem-solving skills.
“When you feel so mad that you wanna roar, take a deep breath, and count to four.” - Daniel Tiger:
Key Concepts:
- Before a child learns to manage frustration internally, they rely on external help (you!). It’s on us to feed our children strategies.
- Frustration can take many forms…refusing to complete a task, avoidance, whining, complaining, arguing, crying, withdrawing, etc.
- Improving frustration tolerance is two-fold - partly developmental and partly through learning to identify the frustrating moments.
- No surprise, but how WE (as caregivers) react is particularly important.
- Children need to experience moments of frustration to learn how to problem solve and work through them. Learning occurs between the known and the unknown. Let these moments happen.
What to Try:
- Pay close attention to the things that make your child frustrated. Is there a pattern? For example, every time your child transitions, do they show immense frustration?
- Assist your child in learning to pause and do a body scan. Show your child a piece of paper with an outline of a person. Point to different parts of the body and asked how that body part feels when they’re upset.
- Help your child set goals, use attainable check lists to face challenges. For example, if getting ready for school often makes your child frustrated, create a visual checklist for them to work off of. Breaking down the task (first brush teeth, then get dressed, then eat breakfast, etc…) makes tasks more manageable.
- Validate your child’s feelings! ““Ugh! I hear you. I know you wanted to take your brother’s toy and now wasn’t the time. It can be SO hard to wait your turn.”
- Let your child struggle and resist the urge to rescue. Step back and see what they can do to help their own frustration. Though it is hard to watch, your child learns important skills through difficult moments.