Learning to Manage Disappointment

This week’s reading is based on the article, Adulthood is chock-full of disappointment: Our kids need to face the truth, by adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg. It offers an interesting perspective on society’s attitude toward failure and disappointment.

Key points

• Disappointment is part of life: Whether in sport, school, or daily events, setbacks are inevitable and form an essential part of growing up.
• Overprotection harms resilience: Modern ‘concierge parenting’ often shields children from disappointment, but this prevents them from developing grit, autonomy, and coping skills.
• Disappointment builds emotional literacy: Facing setbacks helps young people label emotions, reflect constructively, and learn that failure is survivable.
• Practical parental response: Parents should resist fixing problems immediately, allow children to process emotions, encourage objective reflection, and use simple techniques (like deep breathing) to manage reactions.
• An essential skill: Teaching children to face challenges with courage and curiosity equips them for adulthood better than protecting them from pain or handing them easy victories.

As with many skills, we need to explicitly teach students how to respond to disappointment through reframing, reflecting, and planning. Schools are an ideal place to provide opportunities for young people to try, sometimes fail, and be disappointed, and then support them to overcome it.

Read the article.

Happy coaching.

Kind regards
Mark

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• 5-7 October – Instructional Coaching Group: Teaching Learning Coaching Conference (Arizona, USA)
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