Do you have an easily frustrated child?

Do you have an easily frustrated child who goes from 0 to 60 in the blink of an eye? 
Do you tiptoe around your child, trying not to do anything that will set them off?

If you can relate, please know that you’re not alone! I often work on this with parents because it’s common for children to get frustrated and react inappropriately when things don’t go their way.  

The ability to tolerate frustration is a skill that must be learned and it’s important!  If you don’t develop frustration tolerance skills as a child, you will struggle as an adult.

Let me give you a real coaching example so you can see what I’m talking about.  

I was working with a Mom whose three-year-old got extremely frustrated if things weren’t exactly like she wanted with her breakfast.  If things weren’t perfect, her daughter would have a meltdown.  The Mom would get frustrated and would put her daughter in her room until she calmed down, but that only made things worse.

In our coaching session, I explained what was driving the behavior, and the fact that her daughter didn’t yet have the skills to manage and navigate the feelings of frustration.  

Meltdowns are often driven by frustration.  The child doesn’t get what they want, so they feel frustrated.  Frustration shuts off the logical part of their brain, and their primal brain takes over.  Even though their logical brain knows that the behavior is not okay, once their primal brain is in charge, all bets are off because the primal brain is driven by the fight-or-flight instinct.

There is a direct correlation between how a child feels and how they behave — children have to feel okay to behave okay.  If they’re feeling frustrated, their primal brain takes over.  All logic is gone and they lose the ability to control their emotions and actions.

The mom and I discussed strategies to help her child, and then I also talked to her about how the mom parented when she was frustrated.  The mom admitted that she gets short-tempered, more reactive, resorts to yelling, and moves to “command and demand” parenting when she is frustrated, and she’s not alone.  I armed her with strategies to help her stay more neutral.  She wants to model frustration tolerance so she can parent effectively and help teach her daughter.

Most parents struggle to parent well when they’re frustrated — myself included.  But ironically, this is how we are teaching our kids to act when they are frustrated.

Please note, this is not to blame or shame you or your parents — our parents didn’t know because they didn’t learn it growing up, and we didn’t learn it either.  I’m in the same boat as you, and I’m also aware that blame and shame shut the learning centers down in the brain which will make it really difficult to do better.  I had to work on giving myself more compassion and grace, and I encourage you to do the same.  

As parents, how we respond to our children when they are frustrated will directly impact whether their behavior escalates or they calm down.  

If you struggle as a parent with behavior challenges and an easily frustrated child, I invite you to join us in the Confident Parenting Club!  I’m teaching strategies to deal with behavior challenges (including frustrated kids) throughout March and I’m hosting a virtual live How To Parent Through Challenging Behaviors at the end of the month.  It’s all included in the CPC Membership.  Click here to join!