Challenge - Frustration

[Embassy]

My kids have a tendency to melt down when they have to do something that doesn't come easy. I attempt to teach at their level and go broad and deep in subject matter so we don't have many issues there. But it does come up from time to time especially when dealing with motor skills.

 

How do you teach your child that difficulties are just a mountain to climb over rather than a wall that knocks you down? Is this just a maturity thing? My kids are still elementary age.

[MSNative]

My kids have a tendency to melt down when they have to do something that doesn't come easy. I attempt to teach at their level and go broad and deep in subject matter so we don't have many issues there. But it does come up from time to time especially when dealing with motor skills.

 

How do you teach your child that difficulties are just a mountain to climb over rather than a wall that knocks you down? Is this just a maturity thing? My kids are still elementary age.

 

Great question. Looking forward to reading the responses.

 

What we've done - first I tell my kids that if they already knew how to do it, it wouldn't be called learning. Sounds stupid, I know, but it really seemed to help them accept that it's ok that they can't do everything right off the bat.

Second - I try to assure them that they can do it. Usually I'll introduce something new by saying something like "well, you know how to do x. Y is just like that except you just change this." It takes the scary out of the new.

Third - I let them see me struggle. I have some goals that I'm trying to accomplish. I work next to my kids and they see me working hard and not always achieving those goals. As an example, I'm a terrible artist. Can't draw for beans, but I've always wanted to be able to draw. So, when we do art, I do it with them. They see how bad I am, but that I'm still trying. Then I try to show them how we've all improved. (See, mommy's bird doesn't look like a hippopotamus anymore. Now it looks like a snuffaluffagus.) It seems to help. Either that or I'm just encouraging schadenfreude in my kids.

[Dmmetler]

This is also an issue here. One of the best things for my DD has been to be in the gym when the older girls are working too. She gets to see someone fall 4x in a row before hitting a stunt, getting up, and trying again. She also gets encouragement from someone she BELIEVES when she messes up-for some reason, having a high school student telling her that it took her several years to have a good walkover means more than mom telling her that it takes time to learn a skill.

 

What I'm also running into, though, is another side of this, where if something is easy, she'll rush through, make careless mistakes, and then get frustrated when I make her correct those mistakes. Arrgh!