How Kids Comprehend Their Parents’ Letdown?

Disappointment is an inevitable part of life, and parents should embrace it by staying present, having empathy, letting them know they are not alone, proving their understanding through stories, encouraging them to keep trying, and always validating effort before achievement. Children learn more through observation than what parents tell them.

To help children cope with disappointment, parents can show them how they deal with it and let them know they care. Teaching children to understand and experience disappointment is a valuable skill they will always have. Disappointment can take infinite forms for a child, but parents can teach them how to handle it so they bounce back.

Parents should not put pressure on children to finish tasks on a deadline or have a well-thought-out timeline for their lives. Instead, they should teach them how to recognize and cope with all their feelings, such as anger, joy, excitement, and disappointment. If parents are disappointed, it is because of their own failings as parents.

Disappointment on any level is a healthy and positive emotion that helps mold and shape a child’s emotional, intellectual, and social development. Parents should be honest, accept their emotions, label the feelings, understand the true disappointment, and set realistic expectations. Growing up is about learning to empathize with parents and understanding that they are humans with flaws and limitations.

Under five is an important window in which children can learn about disappointment and manage it. Respectful communication is the life-blood of all relationships, and subtle choices of words can either enhance or diminish family connection.


📹 How To Deal With Disappointment As A Parent

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What is depleted mother syndrome?

Mom burnout, also known as depleted mother syndrome, is a feeling of mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of fulfillment resulting from intense child care demands. It is more common among women due to the disproportionate burden of parenting responsibilities on mothers, even when they work full-time outside the home. Symptoms of mom burnout include extreme feelings of exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of fulfillment.

How do you explain an absent parent to a child?
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How do you explain an absent parent to a child?

When a child asks about their absent parent, it’s important to provide simple answers to comfort them without causing confusion. It’s crucial to avoid speaking negatively about other parents and validate their feelings. As they grow older, you can provide a more in-depth explanation, such as saying, “I don’t know where they are, but I’m here for you”.

When a child starts to blame themselves for their parent’s absence, it’s essential to let them know that it’s not their fault. This will help them feel responsible for how things worked out and prevent them from feeling responsible for their situation. Be realistic and allow your child to express their feelings without being overly emotional. By doing so, you can help them understand and cope with their parent’s absence.

How do you deal with unsatisfied parents?

In order to effectively navigate the challenges posed by toxic parents, it is essential to avoid attempting to please them, establish clear boundaries, and exercise discernment in the information you share with them. It is important to be aware of one’s parents’ limitations and to work around them if necessary. It is advisable to have an exit strategy and to avoid attempting to reason with them.

How does disappointment affect a child?
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How does disappointment affect a child?

Disappointment is a natural part of life, as it occurs when reality doesn’t meet expectations and can manifest in various ways, such as tantrums, withdrawal, theft, or aggression. These reactions are not beneficial for adults, so it’s important for children to learn to handle disappointment and self-regulate strong emotions. Parents should not try to protect their children from these uncomfortable feelings, as this can lead to them being unprepared to handle life’s pains and difficulties, leading to anxious and overwhelmed young adults.

Research suggests that parents of anxious children tend to have more negative expectations of their children’s ability to cope with stressful situations and are more likely to intervene for their children when they display negative emotions or are in distress.

How do unhappy parents affect child development?

Depression in parents is linked to children’s early signs of difficult temperament, insecure attachment, negative affect, lower cognitive/intellectual/academic performance, cognitive vulnerabilities to depression, poorer interpersonal functioning, and abnormalities in psychobiological systems. This leads to behavior problems and psychopathology in children, including higher rates of depression, earlier onset, longer duration, greater functional impairment, higher likelihood of recurrence, higher anxiety rates, and higher rates and levels of severity of internalizing and externalizing symptoms and disorders in children and adolescents.

What happens to children with emotionally absent parents?

Emotionally unavailable parents can lead to unstable friendships, failed relationships, emotional neediness, inability to self-regulate, and identity confusion. This neglect can create core wounding and developmental trauma, which can have long-term effects if not addressed. Long-term effects of being raised by emotionally unavailable parents include rigidity, low-stress tolerance, emotional instability with aggression, poor boundaries, unstable relationships, and attention-seeking. This deficit of care can create dysfunctional patterns of thinking, which can seed mental health issues and an inability to relate to others later in adulthood.

What is the psychology behind disappointment?

Disappointment arises from unrealistic expectations and thoughts, which may be too high for the situation. To address this, it’s important to adjust expectations to more realistic levels. Differentiating between predictable and unavoidable disappointments is crucial for appropriate response. Repeated disappointments may be due to faulty or irrational thinking patterns. If you’re frequently disappointed, evaluate your thoughts and try to change these faulty thinking patterns.

How to deal with your parents disappointing you?

To succeed in life, prioritize yourself and be confident in your decisions. Openly discuss your expectations with your parents, reminding them of your uniqueness and expressing gratitude for their guidance. Remember that you are good enough and your voice matters in your own life. Ultimately, it’s up to you to make your own decisions and pursue your passions. No one knows you better than yourself, so go for a different job, attend your dream school, travel, start your own business, or pursue whatever makes you happy. Be honest with yourself and your parents, and remember that no one knows you better than yourself. Remember that your voice matters in your own life, and you do you.

Is it okay to tell your child you're disappointed in them?
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Is it okay to tell your child you’re disappointed in them?

No, you don’t need to tell your children you’re disappointed, sad, or angry about their behavior to get them to act right. It’s not shaming, but you can tell your child what you need and expect from them, such as honesty. All children will act like children, and they will experiment with breaking your rules and lying. Children who adore and respect you are more likely to follow your rules more often.

To build a respectful relationship, you need to coach your child through their emotions, set clear, kind limits, give them the support they need to manage themselves better, and role-model respectful expression of emotions. This will help your child respect you and encourage them to follow your rules.

What does an emotionally absent parent look like?

Individuals who lack the ability to “mirror” a child’s emotional state, respond to their emotions impatiently, avoid discussing negative emotions, and are dismissive or overwhelmed when a child needs help are considered emotionally unavailable. They may not be interested in the child’s life, struggle to express their feelings, and are unwilling to provide comfort during emotional distress. Other signs of emotional availability include neglecting a child’s basic needs, acting hostilely or intrusively, expressing negative emotions, and acting as though the child is incapable of performing age-appropriate tasks.

How are children affected by bad parenting?
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How are children affected by bad parenting?

Research on parenting, parent-child relationships, parenting style, effortful parenting, the concept of parenting, and cognitive development of children has been extensive. Children’s cognitive development begins in the first year of life and progresses gradually over time. Positive parenting is essential for children to face challenging problems and develop confidence. Sensitive parenting and caregiving are necessary for a child’s maturity and cognitive development.

There are four types of parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved. Good parenting requires understanding the concept of good parenting, the importance of parenting and children’s needs, the components of parenting, and the consequences of parenting.

Good parenting involves meeting a child’s needs according to cultural standards that change from generation to generation. Research on parent-child relationships and childhood development has increased rapidly, focusing on parenting practices and child development and maturation. Mental and physical stimuli like cognition development, language, social emotion, and motor skills in infants and children are difficult to mature or grow. Higher academic performance, income, and socioeconomic development determine childhood growth.

Parenting is the process of supporting and promoting a child’s physical, emotional, mental, and social development. Dimensions of parenting include quality of instructions, animation, cognitive stimulation, physical care, parent-child synchrony, sensitivity, and positive responsiveness. Research focuses on increasing parental support and responsibility to develop children’s cognitive abilities, providing sensitive caregiving effects on children’s cognitive development.

Sensitive parenting with young children provides an emotional climate for them, offering security and confidence. Self-sufficient support and sensitivity, such as best emotions, lead to early brain maturation and cognitive development in children. Sensitive parenting shows affective and behavioral development in children, characterized by responsiveness, positive encouragement, approval or thanking, stimulation, and lingering.

Children’s health, behavior, development, and style of parenting are always a concern for parents. Professional help is required to solve this problem, related to family care, youth and parenting support, and children’s mental health. Media is used to increase parenting information and awareness, enhancing parenting skills and decreasing depression, anxiety, and stress. This research primarily focuses on parenting styles, child cognition, and the concept of parenting.


📹 Why You Should Disappoint Your Parents | Desiree Akhavan | TED

When filmmaker Desiree Akhavan told her Iranian immigrant parents she was in love with a woman, she knew they would object.


How Kids Comprehend Their Parents' Letdown
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Rae Fairbanks Mosher

I’m a mother, teacher, and writer who has found immense joy in the journey of motherhood. Through my blog, I share my experiences, lessons, and reflections on balancing life as a parent and a professional. My passion for teaching extends beyond the classroom as I write about the challenges and blessings of raising children. Join me as I explore the beautiful chaos of motherhood and share insights that inspire and uplift.

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13 comments

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  • Nicholeen, it’s amazing how you cared so much about your foster kids. It look so easy when you talk about all the things we can teach our kids, only that maybe many of us don’t not how to do it (for example, communicate) I wish we can bring you to our house so you can teach us how to be better parents. 🤗 Venezuelan mom in Canada 🇨🇦

  • I remember constantly hiding from my parents that I had a girlfriend and it really did chip at me. Living life in secrecy was not it. Felt more inclined to hide more and more of myself due to fear of disappointing them. It’s all good now though just wish we could have done this earlier on in life. Good talk! 👍

  • i’ve been doing this since i was a kid because my parents had so much expectations on me that i couldn’t keep up, so i started to crash every single of them because i simply thought that no kid should live to accomplish their parents expectations. Live with your own expectations and try to understand what they are trying to say not what they are saying

  • As children of immigrants it’s easy for us to look at our parents and culture and demonize it for what made us different in a new country. I love how she pays respect to her culture while also recognizing that the rules that kept her parents and ancestors alive in the old country are not necessary in the time and place she is now. For anybody claiming this to be woke propaganda you simply do not understand what it is like to be raised in a place you where born (American) with other children (who are also born americans) who do not live with the ghost of another mother country within them. there is something isolating about it that creates insecurity and many of us struggle to understand our place and where we belong all while being “emotionally abused” (in quotations because many foreign born parents will never acknowledge that the way they speak is degrading and sprouts self doubt in their young very early in the child’s life because the parents struggled to get basic needs ie walk to schooled or had to pump water for baths and have no concept of proper coping mechanism because as children they were focused on survival and now their kids do not and can emotionally develop) by parents who don’t understand that their strict beliefs and ingrained bias are not productive in the new place they have come to for better opportunity. I think she spoke beautifully and has given hope to 1st gen americans like my self who have parents that just can’t get over the fact that the better life they worked for is here.

  • I really appreciate her coming here and speaking up. It gives me hope, and it gives me a lot of strength. The homophobes here calling this ‘woke’ have clearly never had expectations that they cannot fulfill put upon them by people they love. Culture can be rough, and choosing to live your own life when it goes against takes an immense amount of strength and integrity. When culture requires me to do stuff that I don’t agree with, I like to remind myself that it is just a lot of ‘dead people peer pressure’. It can be good to comply for the sake of beliefs and loved ones when it doesn’t cost much, but only until the point that it becomes morally incompatible with you, and at that point you have to treat it as petulant people pressuring you into doing something you know is wrong.

  • I don’t know, I think it is imperative you leave home and find yourself. Dad wanted me to be a doctor and marry the girl he liked, career, home, car, etc. And I was a good son and did what I was told. But that wasn’t me. That was my dad living his life through me. I didn’t know who I was. One day, I told him I was going abroad for college and he threw a fit. I had to leave to discover the real me, and what a fantastic decision. At 92yo, he says I betrayed him, abandoned, didn’t marry so and so, etc. He is mean as ever and I live on the other side of the globe. Not the way I would like it to be, but I have to be true to myself.

  • No kid has it easy when it comes to their parents. I’m constantly misjudged by society. Who look at me and think I am entitled. Only to not know that I had a drug addict for a brother. Who made my parents go nuts but, was never around to reap punishment. So they took it out on me and I was homeless by the time I was 13 years old. I’ve had to work a ton harder than a lot of other people to get where I am in this life and because of that. I work really hard to maintain it too. We all have our own stories we can tell about our parents and no parent is perfect.

  • I cried perusal this, I have been a huge fan of Desiree since 2018 and always adored her work, how she depicts what it is like being a homosexual with immigrant parents and being gay overall. I cried because one day my mother will find out I am gay and my family will but this means I am free, and I can be my true self and not live by there standards, rules or opinions. Thank you Desiree. I love you and your work so so much.

  • These days after some parents have been for a long time isolated from their infant children while their successful adult children are finally getting to know them better at first attempts to disappoint parents while offering them their opinions that might only seem both gratifying and entertaining to them about the mystery as to how their children ended up having the same opinions.

  • Points taken. Yes, one ought to follow one’s own path and live one’s own truth. Yet, the speaker’s descriptions of the Iranian society and the Iranian diaspora were overtly generalising, even if there were some truths to the observations of their beliefs and behaviours. Iranian society of HER generation is far from the society her parents left when they left Iran… She wouldn’t travel to Iran perhaps, but if she did, she’d certainly be surprised to witness the difference firsthand.

  • When do parents get to have their lives back? I’ve been putting my son first and wanting him never to suffer. I show up for him constantly. I can’t do less. He is going to be 26. He will finish getting his mba soon. I put him through school My son doesn’t try to please me. I expect nothing back. I keep my judgement to myself and I take his without reaction. Maybe one day he will turn around and say a thank you from the depth of his soul. Maybe. Wisdom comes from living. He doesn’t like that I say that. But he hasn’t lived long enough to fully understand.

  • Taarof is an expression of cultural elegance—the happy intersection of polite generosity and a touch of humor. The Shah certainly discovered the Iranian people weren’t willing to lose Persian culture! It’s a culture far older than Islam and rich in so many ways. Its history touches every other old world civilization. I’m glad Persian culture inherently resisted rapid change for most of the last 3000 years because humanity needs stability AND innovation for a healthy balance. Iran today has had its stability disrupted too often for there to be balance. It jeopardizes the culture and frankly endangers everyone on Earth. Today’s government is no less extreme (and far less tolerant) than Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s, just in the opposite direction. Matters of delicate privacy and secrecy have been a human (and a Persian) reality forever—as long as there have been humans—surely tens of thousands of years. You are not the first of anything (except perhaps among the first to need to sacrifice your discretion and privacy for some kind of freedom—without risking your life—which is apparently a hard distinction for many people to understand). Being proud to oppose your culture or upset your family is an interesting idea that recalls childhood tantrums and fantasies. Greatness lies elsewhere. It is parents working 100 hours per week in another country so their children can escape the poverty cycle. It is a daughter carrying her mother from bed to shower to chair to bed all day, every day. It is boldly confronting the lies beneath which our world is flooded.

  • Has TED turned into therapy sessions for the speaker? Diss your culture – check. Diss your upbringing – check. Diss intolerance – check. Be intolerant towards the views of others – check. I can bet my bottom dollar that the challenges faced by immigrant parents were far, far more than the children of those immigrants could even imagine. If you had a roof over your head, food and clothes then be grateful because those intolerant immigrants gave up their lives to provide a better life for you.

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