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Health & Fitness

BLOG: Dealing with Disappointment

Disappointment sucks. There. I said it. The only thing worse is dealing with your maturing child's disappointment.

Disappointment sucks.

There. I said it.

The only thing worse is dealing with your maturing child’s disappointment.

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When my kids were little, my husband and I could solve all their problems. Even better, we looked like total heroes in the process.

“Mommy! My lollipop dropped in the gutter!”

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No problem! Let me get you a new one (if you are kid #1) or clean it off for you (if you are kid #2+).

“Mommy! My favorite tea cup broke and now Mr. Bear has nothing to drink from!”

No problem. I was saving a new tea set for your birthday, but why don’t we open that now.

“Mommy! I can’t find my princess dress and I need it for the first day of Fairy Tale Princess Camp!”

No problem. I washed it last night so it would be ready for your big day.

“Mommy! Steve is leaving Blue’s Clues! WHY!? I love Steve! Who will take care of Blue?!”

No problem. Steve is just going to “college” and he has found someone super-de-duper to take care of Blue while he is gone. I am sure Joe will do a superb job and Blue’s Clues will be better than ever!

As parents, we become highly skilled at anticipating our child’s disappointments, and figuring out the best way to either prevent them (if possible), or work through them (if they aren’t preventable).

And then they hit puberty, middle school and all of its relative suckiness (sorry, right now I can’t think of another word for the hell that we call middle school), mean girls, cute boys (who ignore them or worse: break their hearts), and a million other things and situations that disappoint.

It is at this point that we lose our hero crowns. Gone are the days when we could really prevent such disappointments. Now, just working through them can feel like huge accomplishments.

My poor seventh grader has dealt with some tough disappointments lately. Her soccer teams have lost every game this season. Every single game. Both outdoor soccer in the fall, and indoor soccer over the winter. I was her coach for the indoor team and she called me out at the end of last night’s game (in front of the team and their parents) saying, “You lied. You said we would eventually win a game. Well, we didn’t. The whole season we lost. So you lied.”

Ouch. Don’t you hate that moment when your kids realize you are not a hero, but a mistake-making, apology-giving, normal-messed-up human being (like everyone else)?

As I looked around at the players’ disappointed faces, I tried to come up with some inspirational way to end the season. But I couldn’t think of anything and failed miserably. So much for my optimistic tone this season. It’s one thing to keep telling them, “Don’t give up! We’ll get ‘em next time!” But when next time might mean next year, and this time felt so bad, it’s pretty tough to keep slapping the other team’s hands, while cheerily saying “good game.”

One of the longest losing streaks for any sports team goes to the Caltech Beavers, who lost 207 consecutive college basketball games between 1996 and 2007. In case you need help with the math, that was over ten years of never winning a single game. Talk about a season of disappointment, those guys are listed in Wikipedia under “longest losing streak” (really).

Fine, so we aren’t that bad, but I still wish I could fix this for her. But she has to live through it and fully experience it in order to not only survive, but thrive. And it hurts. A lot.

So no, I can’t promise my kids they will always win… although I can promise them we. will. eventually. win. Maybe not this week, or this season, or this year, but if we never give up we will finally succeed.

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galations 6:9)

We can be sure that there will be many let-downs in life, and everyone handles those disappointments differently. My husband and I are in that tough phase of parenting tweens and teens through the wins and the losses. We’re trying to figure out the best way to help them work through the bummer times in life so we can all make it to the other side not bitter, but better.

Whew. Are we there yet? :)

[This was originally posted at my personal blog on 3/7/12.]

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