How to teach your children to tolerate frustration, in 6 steps

Knowing how to deal with life's problems from a young age is necessary to stand on your own two feet.

As parents, we want the best for our childrenIn trying to give them everything, we can make the mistake of not allowing them to develop as people and not allowing them to experience life for themselves. These behaviors, which may seem like great displays of love and protection, ultimately cause children to fail to acquire some coping skills that may be useful in their future, when they are solely dependent on themselves.

One of these skills is frustration tolerancewhich is closely related to resilience and people's ability to cope with less pleasant situations. People with low frustration tolerance have serious difficulties controlling their emotions, are very vulnerable to emotional pain, are impulsive and impatient, and have difficulty adapting to changing environments.

Related article, "What is frustration and how does it affect our lives?"

Learning to tolerate frustration is key to children's well-being

Tolerance to frustration is a concept developed by Albert Ellis, a well-known psychologist that we talked about in our article "Albert Ellis' Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT)".

And it is that to support or tolerate frustration is necessary to face the adversities that life can present or the bad moments that sometimes we have to live. Otherwise, we can become vulnerable in these situations or emotionally dependent people in interpersonal relationships. Life sometimes presents us with problems, and we should be able to face them and solve them instead of running away from them. and solve them instead of running away from them.

When things do not go as we wish or the expectations we had in mind are not fulfilled, frustration may appear, which if not tolerated gives way to sadness, disappointment, anxiety, anxiety and disillusionment.

Therefore, to tolerate frustration is to be able to face the problems that arise despite the discomfort and pain despite the discomfort and Pain it causes, which allows us to adapt better to situations and, therefore, to react appropriately. When it comes to educating the new generations, this is extremely important.

Keys to teach your children to tolerate frustration.

Fortunately, it is possible to work on frustration tolerance. In the following lines we give you some keys to help you raise your children to be more tolerant of frustration.

1. Educate with values such as effort

When we educate our children, we must think about the values they are acquiring. We may think that giving them the best clothes or the toys they want without any effort is a good parenting action. However, we must educate him so that he understands that the things he receives are the result of his effort.. In this way, he will learn that in life, if he wants something, he has to fight for it. Things are not always going to come to him as a gift.

2. Teach him to set and meet realistic goals

The frustration appears many times because we set goals that are irrational and unattainable. When we have very high expectations and we do not meet them, then we can suffer for it. Setting realistic goals and achieving them teaches us to be mature and rational, and makes it clear that we must avoid situations that lead us to feel frustrated and, therefore, to suffer.

3. Be consistent and set an example

When educating a child we must always be coherent with what we say to them, because we are models for them. If we intend to educate them in values and then we ourselves are unable to apply what we are teaching them, learning will not take place. Therefore, our way of acting affects how our children develop, because vicarious learning is especially important at this age.

4. Do not give in to tantrums

Giving in to tantrums is a way of reinforcing negative behaviors, and causes a child to learn that he can get what he wants simply by crying or throwing tantrums. When we give in to their tantrumsWhen we give in to their tantrums, we send them the message that they can get what they want by acting out, and we don't allow them time to reflect on the frustration of not getting their way. Sometimes suffering a little is a good way to learn valuable lessons.

5. Set limits for your child

Children and adolescents must have clear limits so they know how to act. This does not mean that we should be authoritarian with them, but simply make them understand that there are certain behaviors that have negative consequences for them.

If we give a child a wide berth to do whatever he wants, he will always get away with it and, therefore, he will not value anything. When you find yourself in situations where things do not go your way, you will feel a great sense of failure because you have not learned from the unpleasant experiences of the past.

6. Help him learn from frustration

Following the previous point, difficult experiences are a great opportunity to learn new things, because even though we often do not know how to deal with them.Even though we are often not aware of it, we can also learn from pain. In fact, experiential learning is one of the best ways to learn. However, as long as we learn from experience through self-reflection.