Family Friday Newsletter - 3 min read by: Finley Robinson

A Single Sentence from a Season Ahead

Fearing Frustration

One of the approaches that my wife and I believed in was raising kids who could "figure it out." We didn't start out that way because, like most parents, our natural response to a child who couldn't find something was to jump in and solve the problem.

As they aged though, I became convinced that we were causing more harm than good by doing too much for them. I learned that in fact, it was MY impatience that caused me to do too much for my kids.

I've written about the benefits of being a "Figure It Out Family," but recently, a parenting voice I respect opened my eyes even further about doing too much for your kids.

Becky Kennedy is an American clinical psychologist who is founder and chief executive officer of the Good Inside company, an online parenting advice service. She was on a podcast I listened to and delivered a powerful 10 minutes around defeating one of the biggest family villains we face....Entitlement.

Her Premise: Frustration tolerance is one of the most important skills in life. It is the skill that helps you learn and do hard things. As adults we know that no one gets to any place in life by avoiding frustration.

Her Principle: Frustration is one of the best feelings your kids can feel. Our job is not to take away frustration. Our job is not always to make our kids happy. Our job is to help our kids learn to tolerate the widest range of emotions because they will always have the widest range of emotions.

Defeating Entitlement

Taking a closer look at a child or adult who feels entitled reveals that they have a deeper emotion that is present. They cannot handle frustration.

How does someone develop a fear of frustration?

It happens when kids are young. In their early years, they are learning how to relate to the entire range of emotions they will feel for the rest of their life.

If they are learning, “When I am frustrated, do people solve things for me right away? Do they make it better for me immediately? Is there always a frictionless path in front of me?"

If parents are doing that for their kids when they are young, not working though their tantrums, and just solving the problem with technology, there is no frustration tolerance being built.

Entitlement is the building of circuits in a child's body that teach them, “When I get frustrated, I should expect someone else to provide me an exit.” Then, not only do kids not learn to tolerate frustration, they learn to be scared of it.

When all the adults around a child jump through hoops to make sure they aren't frustrated, it reinforces that the frustration feeling is bad. If a child is overwhelmed but their parents will do anything to make the feeling go away, then a frustration tolerance is never built.

Adult entitlement occurs in a situation when someone is struggling or things aren't going their way. Adults who are or act entitled feel very vulnerable and become people with no greater skills to deal with the frustrations of life than they did when they were 1 or 2.

Frustration Tolerance

So how does a family combat entitlement? By helping kids in the power-decade feel, experience, process and deal with frustration without being bailed out.

A lot of it boils down to enduring things that aren't your preference or favorite. This applies to the kids and parents too. We learned the importance of verbalizing how we feel and letting our kids do the same while still pressing on with the uncomfortable thing. Some examples...

The kids come with mom to run several errands.
The family travels across the state for the big reunion.
The brother sits through his sister's 3 hour dance recital.
The family cleans up the table and does dishes before bedtime.
The kids take the pets on a walk around the neighborhood.
The sister skips a play date for her brothers soccer game.
The parents include the kids in sorting the laundry.

Like most things for our families, discernment in applying good principles in every situation is necessary. There are times to let frustration naturally occur and other times to let it pass.

But by forcing kids to figure it out and not always bailing them out when they are frustrated, you are doing the right thing. The best way to prevent an entitled adult is to help build a frustration tolerance in your child.

See you next Friday,
Finley