Pass the parcel is one of those timeless games that makes a child’s birthday party a time to remember. I recall a time when my children were much younger and I was given the important task of making the parcel. I dutifully placed the prize in the middle of the parcel and started wrapping. The idea was of course that each child would pass the parcel around, unwrapping each layer; with the hope that they were the lucky one!
In those days there was only one winner. How things have changed in 2022! The 2022 version has a prize wrapped in each layer (of the same value) so that each time the music stops, each child receives a prize. In doing so, we ensure that each child is treated equally, no-one misses out and no one is disappointed.
This ideal of ensuring our children are not disappointed is pervasive in our society, and in this article, I would like to challenge the notion and suggest that it can even be harmful, in terms of our child’s emotional, social and psychological development, if we take the idea to extremes.
As parents we want our children to thrive and to succeed. However, these two goals can at times be in conflict. It is important for our children to experience success across a range of areas. A desire to succeed will spur them on, helping them to meet new challenges and having met the challenge, to set new goals in an upward march towards maturity, success, and self-improvement.
It’s important to remember that a normal and healthy part of achieving maturity is to experience disappointment and even failure. It can easily be argued that as humans the most worthwhile experiences on the pathway to success are our disappointments and failures. This is in fact how we learn and grow; and experiencing setbacks, failures and disappointments are a vital, valuable part of healthy child development.
Sadly, for some, the modern notion of parenting is to shield our children from disappointment and upset at all costs. Over my many years as an educator I have seen a real change in this regard. Have we become trigger happy when it comes to defending our children?
Take weekend sport as an example. Children’s sport should be about fitness, skill development, sportsmanship and most importantly, fun. It is great when our child’s team wins, but it should be just as great when they lose. Our reaction in losing (blame the ref, blame the coach, and blame the other players) sends a powerful message to our children about how to cope with losing, disappointment and failure.
Sadly, even in recent years, I have seen parents almost come to blows over the goings-on at a sporting match. The ideals I spoke of go completely out the window and our children come to learn that winning is everything and that we must never lose!
Unfortunately, we occasionally see this dynamic spilling over into the school setting. We desperately want our children to fit in at school, to be “happy” and to have fulfilling relationships. It is a normal and healthy parental response to want to support our children. However, when our support robs our children of the opportunity to work through issues for themselves, they can miss out on learning to be resilient, and we do them a disservice.
Now, I am not saying that we should turn a blind eye to our children’s emotional needs or that we should not assist them if they are experiencing disappointment or bullying. What I am saying is that we must be careful about the way that we respond. This will involve:
1. Making a carefully considered response and behave responsibly ourselves
Flying off the handle, yelling at a referee, talking negatively about a teacher around the dinner table, or calling another parent to give them a piece of our mind is never helpful. Our children watch and learn from our words and our actions. If we act without thinking carefully through our responses, so will they. Our children often just want to please us, and if our words and actions in a situation are negative, we may inadvertently send our children the message that they have disappointed us (or even worse that “they are a disappointment”).
2. Support those who work with our children
Coaches and teachers can have a powerful positive impact on our children. However, they are only human and will make mistakes from time to time. The saying goes “It takes a village to raise a child” and we must work in partnership with others for the good of our children. Sometimes a teacher or a coach will make a decision that we don’t like, or that may leave our child feeling disappointed or hurt. Certain setbacks such as not making the team or not achieving the grades we were hoping for require us to work cooperatively. These experiences can teach our children to be resilient, and to handle disappointment with grace and dignity.
3. Disappointment provides a wonderful opportunity for dialogue with our children
Rather than giving our children assurances that we will change the situation, it is more important to support them and give them strategies which will assist them to find their way through the situation in their own way. By doing this, we build healthier relationships with our children and help them develop valuable resilience skills and positive mental, emotional, and psychological health. If we, as parents, continually shield our children and never allow them to experience upset and disappointment, we do them no favours.
As hard as it is, there are times when we must allow our children to stand on their own two feet and experience what life throws at them. A little disappointment can be a good thing.
I hope that you and your family have a wonderful Term 2 at Orana Steiner School. As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me if I can be of assistance to you at: principalsoffice@oranaschool.com
Geoffrey Fouracre – Principal
