Helping kids cope with life’s letdowns

By Laurie McBurney

Alone on the stage under the glaring spotlight, he looked small and vulnerable to his anxious parents, seated in the crowded hall. Silence fell as Jonathan Schut waited for the announcer to deliver the word, the one he would have to spell correctly in order to keep his place onstage.

The nine-year-old had outspelled fellow students at his Prince Edward Island elementary school and met with success at the provincial competition. He’d worked hard to achieve his dream and was now competing to be declared the best speller in his age group in the nation.

“Bicaudate,” the announcer intoned. Jonathan took a deep breath. “B-I-C-O-D-A-T-E-,” he spelled slowly.

Disappointment. At nine years
old or at 19, children all face it at
some point. And whether their world crumbles when they’re standing in the spotlight or sitting beside a boyfriend who confesses he’s “just not that into you,” the feelings are similar. Grief. Embarrassment. Betrayal.

Pam and Mike Schut looked at each other, a big question looming in both their minds. How were they going to help Jonathan cope with this?


Admit the grief is real

Jonathan had been instructed where to go after misspelling a word. He would meet his parents backstage in the aptly named “crying room.”

According to experts, all kids could use a crying room once in a while. Mary Lou Morrison, a counsellor in Charlottetown who has worked with high school students for more than 20 years, says kids seek her out to help them deal with a laundry list of disappointments.

“When there is a loss, we need to grieve,” Morrison says. Yet it’s often loving, well-intended parents who stand in the way. “We get uncomfortable when children are sad. [As a result], they get the message that we’d prefer not to see them unhappy.”


Listen and empathize

Ottawa father Steve Johnson (not his real name) tells of driving home with his son who had just been cut from a competitive soccer team. David, who was upset and humiliated, had screamed at his father in frustration. “Later, when we were in the car, he said, ‘I’m sorry I yelled at you. I just needed someone to yell at,’” Johnson remembers. “[As a parent] you need to give your children some space to adjust, to get it out of their systems in a safe environment.”

The importance of being a patient and empathetic listener cannot be overstated, says Andrew Hyde, a youth and young adult minister with Ottawa Presbytery. “Young people need someone to listen and empathize. Often, when someone listens to them, they can figure things out on their own,” he says.
Empathetic listening engenders trust, and young people may be able to open up and tell you things that wouldn’t ordinarily come up in a casual conversation. It also can give kids an opportunity to let off some steam.
Says Morrison, “It’s important to give them a chance to say [the thing they feel bad about], to stay with the feeling and validate it.”


Turn grief into growth

While it’s never pleasant to see your children go through disappointment, it’s important to let them know that it’s part of life. But steer clear of simplistic platitudes, such as “it will build character” or “it will make you stronger.”

“I don’t think disappointment in itself is character building. The character building is in how they learn to go past the disappointment,” Johnson says.
Johnson broached questions and gave suggestions to his soccer-playing son, such as, “Okay, what are you going to do?” and “Let’s look at your options.”

As well as being a top speller, Jonathan Schut is a talented baseball player. When he was the last player cut from a Triple-A ball team and had to return to a lower-level team, he felt it was unfair and unjust. His parents helped him see a different side.

“We said, ‘You have so much to add to the team you are on.’ We encouraged him to lead, help others be the best they can be and to develop his own skills,” says Pam Schut.

“It’s important to get kids to a place where they are willing to invest again. Help them come up with another plan they can get excited about,” says Hyde.

However, sometimes there is just nothing redeeming about disappointment. Pam Schut’s daughter was abandoned by her best friend for no apparent reason. “We just cried together. There was no way we could fix it. It hurt, it was surprising and it was out of our hands,” she says. “All I could say was, ‘This is going to hurt for a while, but it’s not always going to hurt.’”


Be a model

While Schut may have felt inadequate in this situation, she had instinctively said exactly the right thing.

“We need to show our children that when we feel badly, we cry and we are sad. They need to feel it is normal,” Morrison explains. “Disappointment is part of day-to-day living, and there is no way we can protect them.”

Hyde shares that view. “If more adults would share their disappointments, it would help young people. It would really encourage them,” he says, noting that the church family also has a role to play. “Jesus came for the broken, yet what most teens experience [at church] is people who seem to have it all together.”

While kids need to see our own disappointment, they don’t need to see parents acting as if their child’s disappointment is a personal affront. Johnson, who is a soccer coach as well as soccer parent, calls it transference. “When a kid doesn’t succeed, sometimes you are dealing with the disappointment of the parent. It can be really brutal. Competitive parents can really humiliate their kids,” he says.

“Guard that you don’t live vicariously through your child,” advises Pam Schut. “It’s not about you.”

That was made abundantly clear to Schut and her husband when Jonathan started compiling lists of words for the next spelling bee.  His mother wasn’t sure if it was a good idea but they played along. They designed a plan that incorporated some of the hard lessons from the first go-round. Pam sought his permission to push him if she thought he was slacking off.

Jonathan studied, memorized and practised, and climbed back onto the spelling bee stage. This time, he was knocked out even earlier at the nationals than the time before.
Disappointed? Of course. Tears? You bet. But something else happened: he matured a bit.

His mother says his attitude was, “I’ve tried some things and I’ve had relative success. I don’t have to be number one to be proud of myself.”

Jonathan Schut successfully defended his provincial spelling bee crown in March. He will represent P.E.I. for the third time at the national bee in Ottawa this month.