Teaching How to Handle Disappointment​

Everyone has bad days.

Your child/client will be no exception with respect to their Play Attention training.  Maybe they didn’t do so well on a classroom assignment that day, or maybe they aren’t feeling well, or they were hurt by something another student said or did at school.  Whatever the reason, external factors can certainly affect an individual’s ability to focus, and thus, their performance on Play Attention. This can result in a loss of advancement stars, or not accomplishing goals, which causes the student to miss out on earning reward points.  

When such things happen, especially when the cause is something outside of the student’s control like being sick, it can be especially upsetting.  

“But, that’s not fair!”, your child/client might exclaim, and while they might be absolutely right, such situations happen all the time in real life.  This makes an occurrence like this what we call a “teachable moment”.

Many students with attention challenges have an aversion to what they perceive as failure.  This is often a learned trait, as they have tried different things in the past and not been successful.  

Since emotional control is something individuals with ADHD also struggle with, this "failure" can result in outbursts or tantrums, or even a reluctance to try at all. In the minds of many such children, they retain a certain amount of control over the situation by simply refusing to give challenging endeavors a chance.  Far better that, (from their perspective), than to give it their best shot and come up short.

This is where the teachable moment comes in.  We want to express to the child that it’s okay to be challenged sometimes.  Point out that there are lots of things they can already do well, but also things that they perhaps don’t do so well.  And that is true of everyone!  The objective here is to make sure they understand that there is nothing wrong with not being successful all the time, and that there’s certainly nothing wrong with them.  If you have a personal example that you can share with your child, all the better:

Parent: “Remember when Mommy started her new job and she was upset because it was hard?”

Child: “I remember.  You cried that one time.”

Parent: “That’s right, I did!  And that’s okay.  It’s okay to feel frustrated.  But I didn’t give up.  I stuck with it.  And now I love what I do.  Do you think you can try to do the same?  I already know you can, but you have to know it too!”

We want to convey to the child that the only way to be successful is to persevere; to stick with it, even if they have a bad day.  Teach them it’s okay to say to themselves, “I lost my stars today, but you know what? I’ll do better next time.”

ADDitude magazine published a more general article with tips on dealing with your child having a bad day at school which ties into today's Tip of the Week.  

Click here to see more: https://www.additudemag.com/talking-away-a-bad-day/