EP 16 Frustration Tolerance

Añadido: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Without realizing it, you may be robbing your children from one of the most important life skills there are. And it usually has nothing to do with the kids, but it's because we feel uncomfortable.

[00:00:15]If you grew up in a household where emotions weren't allowed or there weren't parents really around and you had to make your own choices and meet your own developmental needs, even though as humans we are wired to connect to, to attach to, to learn from our caregivers, then this could be you. And what it is is rescuing rescuing our kids and not allowing them to develop frustration tolerance.

[00:00:46]If they want a toy, we say no. They start screaming and yelling and flailing and acting crazy, we buy the toy. they wanted to go somewhere and or had a friend that was doing something and then they felt left out. So what do we do? We rescue them and and we provide that opportunity for them. We're very well intended and I say we because this is something I have found myself doing. I just want to make my kids happy.

[00:01:17]However, in those moments, we have so much opportunity to help them develop lifelong skills because if you're human, and if you're listening to this, I'm going to guess you are, and maybe you have some puppy friends listening, too, then you experience frustration. You experience disappointment. Life does not go the way we planned, although we wish it did. That's what we're going to dive into today. If this is something you struggle with where you have swung the p pendulum all the way from not having your needs met to providing every single need, not wanting our kids to ever experience failure or disappointment or frustration because we want them to have a lifelong happiness and successful life.

[00:02:09]Then that is what I have created and what we do inside the purpose parent transformation program. If you would like to chat more about these things, you can go to raising kidspurpose.com chat. As I work with parents, I hear many of them say that they want to parent differently. They want their kids to feel safe and seen and heard and understood and for them to be allowed to express their feelings. But then when we really get to it, what they what we realize is happening instead of not allowing their kids to be alone in their hard feelings, they are not letting their kids experience hard feelings at all. This again, as I said in the intro, it's not intentional where it's well intended. We want our kids to feel loved and to get that type of connection and relationship that maybe we didn't get as children.

[00:03:13]Swinging the pendulum the other way though is then setting up kids who become adults who don't know how to function as adults. and with every little thing that doesn't go their way, they completely lose it. Or maybe they can't be able to speak up for themselves or advocate or be able to have resilience and shift when something doesn't go well. This was me. I did not develop what's called cognitive flexibility where I could handle if something changed from what my expectations were probably until my mid30s maybe my husband would say even a little bit later.

[00:03:58]It would be so hard for me and I would basically ruin vacations or at least a couple days of it because if something didn't go the way that I had planned, I just couldn't let it go. I couldn't shift. I couldn't be okay with it. And it's not because my parents rescued me as a kid. At least I don't think they did. But it was more I did not have someone there to help me feel my feelings in a safe place. It was more go to your room or my parents were working all the time and I just had to be sad or angry or mad or upset by myself. And then I became an adult and it was just too much, too overwhelming. we have an opportunity to help shift this uh with our kids and help them learn how to tolerate frustration at a really young age.

[00:04:50]What also I want to note about this is when our kids struggle, it can feel unbearable to us. It can feel physically uncomfortable to watch them struggle.

[00:05:04]And then if we are uncomfortable, it's really hard to calm ourselves down so we can actually help them through it. Name the feelings, be a regulated, calm presence, be able to help them work through the hard moments so that they can emotionally mature. As I was just talking to a mom this morning and she said, "Okay, my kids are lacking these skills, but I don't have those skills either.

[00:05:34]Ding, ding, ding. Yeah, that's correct.

[00:05:37]And that's why we are reparing ourselves as we're parenting. And it's really, really hard. I want to validate that it is doable. And that's what I do in my purpose parent transformation program.

[00:05:47]if you're interested in that. What made me think about talking about this and how we can help our kids tolerate frustration, tolerate disappointment, not just run in and save the day and be the hero, which later on is actually not necessarily being the type of hero that we want to be. Is the other day my son wanted to go play pickle ball after church. Super fun idea. Yeah, let's go do that. We had never been to our pickle ball courts in our city and oh my goodness, I didn't realize how popular pickle ball was and how popular it is in our city. We have a ton of courts. We went to a different park a couple weeks ago. They only had four courts. This was triple or quadruple that and there were people everywhere. And where I live in Arizona, it's hot this time of year.

[00:06:39]People go at night or early morning. We ended up running home, grabbing my other son and his friend so we could have four players. We got there and to our surprise, which we live in, surprise Arizona, so pun totally intended, we got there and it was super packed. We ran into some friends, which was awesome because they had snagged a court. And the way it works, you put your paddles on the fence and we're waiting and it's hot and it's over stimulating. There's so much going on. It's late at night and my youngest started playing with these other boys just in the on the sidewalk.

[00:07:19]So, when it was time for a couple more players to go in, my friend and her friend went in to go play. And then I thought, "Oh, let's have my other son and his friend go in because they're teenagers and and it would be a good match." Well, this was something that my youngest, again, this was his idea to go play pickle ball, could not handle. He was devastated.

[00:07:43]I could see him standing right next to me and he just started balling. My first instinct was, "Oh, friend, you come out.

[00:07:52]I'm going to let him go in instead." No, this is a perfect opportunity to help him build frustration, tolerance, and be able to tolerate big feelings. and when things don't go away the way we planned.

[00:08:04]Instead, I was there to help him through those feelings and not just leave him out to dry or whatever that phrase is. I got down on his level. He's crying. He's hot. He's sweaty. So, that's not helping either. Whenever we go into the sympathetic state, our temperature tends to rise. And if it's already hot, it can keep him in that state. So, I'm aware of all these things. And part of me was agitated, to be honest. And part of me wanted to just leave at that point. It was so busy. And I was like, "No, I'm going to sit here with him." And I rubbed his back. He's crying. And then he's I let's leave. Let's leave. I want to leave. I want to leave. I want to leave right now. Let's leave. And I It took every ounce of me to not become even more agitated because he is just yelling at me to leave. And then I started on this thought spiral. I stopped it in its tracks. And I am only sharing this because I'm wondering if you feel this way too of we shouldn't even have come. It's late. What were we thinking? We should have been more we should have had a better plan. Uh he's right. We probably should just leave.

[00:09:07]Instead, I calmed that chatter down in my head. Took some slow deep breaths. I let him cry a little bit by standing right next to him if he needed me. And I didn't even use words. I didn't need to.

[00:09:22]A lot of times and what the old Adrienne would have done is logicked my way. It's going to be fine and tell him all the reasons why he's going to be okay and it's not a big deal and no, I validated.

[00:09:35]I empathized and I did it a lot just with my nonverbal.

[00:09:40]The game ended ended and then the two little boys who are younger than my youngest who he is nine and they had never played before they go into the pickle ball court and so it was the four of us and they were actually it took them a few tries but they weren't bad.

[00:09:58]They were able to get the ball over the net and the one little boy actually had quite the serve once his dad came in and helped with him. But again it wasn't what my son had planned. He wanted to play with the four of us and we weren't able to. So, we got through that game.

[00:10:14]He had fun and it was really sweet to watch him to be honest. He was so kind and caring towards the littlest. I believe he's six. He got on his level and he was telling him how to do it and he was teaching him the rules. I don't even know the rules to be honest. We ended up playing and it was, you know, not like it would have been if four older people played, but it was still fun and we had a good time and we came out and my son was still a little upset.

[00:10:43]And so we put our paddles on the fence and we were we went around and we were sitting down and waiting and then these two teenagers were playing. They got done with their game with our friends um husbands and then these two girls just went in to go play with them. Then the tears started again and then there was anger and grumpiness cuz at this point it was 9:00 at night and so the tank was empty. We had enough toleration toleration uh we had enough tolerating frustration for the night for me and my son. So we went home. He was angry. He had all sorts of behaviors. Refusing to get into the bath, I used some play, my number one tool. I have a whole play with parenting class.

[00:11:32]If play is something that is not your go-to tool, and you want it to be because it's a lot more fun. And so, I used some play. We ended up getting a bath. We ended up snuggling. It was a great night. And then the next morning, cuz he had said, "I want to go tomorrow.

[00:11:47]I want to go tomorrow, but you won't take me." and you know, all these things that I just said, "Oh, I I I hear you. I can see you're really frustrated." Then the next morning, I woke him up a little early and I gave him the choice. Hey, do you want to go before it gets hot and go to the courts and see if we can get one?

[00:12:06]And he kind of he likes to sleep in.

[00:12:10]Kind of looked at me. I went out to make a smoothie and he was fully dressed. He does not get ready that fast for school.

[00:12:18]In fact, we usually have to basically drag him out of bed. He was ready. We ate some breakfast together and we got our paddle uh all of our pickle ball stuff and went and it was busy again, but not as bad. And we ended up getting a court and we had it to ourselves for a whole hour. We had so much fun. We got in the car and at that point I was able to reflect with him what happened the night before. I didn't explain that night during what was happening uh during it because his thinker part of his brain was completely offline. His Olympic, his emotional centers were running the show. And so I waited until the next morning. We had the best time ever. We came up with a little ritual paddle board handshake thing.

[00:13:08]Uh and then uh on the way home, he said, "Ah, that was so much better." and I didn't have anyone criticizing me or tell me how to play. And so I share this story because there might be parts of it that you recognize your kid losing it or really upset because something did not turn out that the way that they wanted.

[00:13:30]You just wanted the tears to end. Or maybe you got frustrated yourself and explained to them and and maybe you felt like they were being ungrateful. I mean, you took time out of your night to go do this thing and yeah, it didn't turn out the way you wanted, but you should be grateful. We tend to take that road or we just want to stop it and and start over the next day. And those responses may have come from the programming that has been downloaded in your own brain and how you were treated as a kid. We have an opportunity to build what's called frustration tolerance. You keep hearing me say this phrase. And what it is, it's the the ability to endorse setbacks, obstacles, and delays without becoming emotionally overwhelmed, without just giving up or lashing out.

[00:14:26]It also allows you to process difficult emotions and maintain focus on goals, turning challenging experiences into opportunities of growth rather than avoiding them. As I say that definition, pause and think. Do I have frustration tolerance? Can I tolerate when things don't go well? I used to have very, very low frustration tolerance. And now I would say I'm probably mid-range. still not super high. I have to be very aware of what my body is wanting me to do in those moments and to be able to coach myself through that. And frustration tolerance, it's a skill. That's why you may have low frustration tolerance right now. And that's why we want to have a higher ability to to tolerate frustration. And then we also want our kids to as well. This is a skill. And how do you develop skills? Through practice. If you yourself are realizing that you have a low frustration tolerance, start practicing. When things are hard or disappointing, you can pause and be mindful. Take some deep breaths and figure out ways to be okay with that. And then you can help your kids practice this skill as well.

[00:15:52]This is something we are not born with.

[00:15:54]We are born with all of the emotions and none of the skills. So whenever we remove every hard moment from our kids, we're actually not building a safe environment for them. What we are doing is we're helping children build brains that have no tools for whenever life goes or doesn't go their way. And life won't always go their way as it doesn't for us as well. And remember, kids' brains are majorly under construction.

[00:16:24]This should be a little easier for us to develop because we have fully developed brains if you're over the age of 28. If you're under 28 and you're parenting, you're parenting with a brain that's not fully developed or maybe even under 30 because the emotional centers develop around 30 to 32 or so.

[00:16:44]And kids cannot regulate in the same that way that we can. You've probably heard me say this is brain maturation.

[00:16:52]Emotional maturation is really messy.

[00:16:55]It's emotional. It involves tears. It involves maybe getting upset and doing things that we don't want our kid to do when they're upset, like hurt someone or throw something. Those actions and behaviors are not okay. However, the emotions underneath it are okay because that is part of the human experience.

[00:17:21]And what we can do is we can help scaffold and start building these skills with our kids outside the moments like I did with the pickle ball situation.

[00:17:32]During the moment, I was there. I was present. I made sure I stayed regulated.

[00:17:37]I was taking deep breaths. I was using really my body and my nervous system to help him feel safe. We still pushed through. We still went into the court and played even though he would not stop saying that he wanted to leave. And then he cried some more and I hugged him and I was there for him. I had some extra snuggles that night, but I still allowed the emotions to happen. I didn't just try to stop the emotions either through punishing them, consequencing them, uh yelling, getting upset, or being frustrated myself, but I also uh did not allow him to slam doors and try to break things when we got home because that's really what he wanted to do when he went into angry mode. And so I named those feelings and had to hold boundaries to make sure that he didn't hurt anything or anyone else. And then he was able to move through those emotions in a healthy way and move through that frustration and that disappointment with someone who could provide neurological safety. Here are three practical takeaways for you from this episode and hopefully you learned a little something about what happened at the pickle ball court. Now, I do have to say too, this has taken me years and honestly three kids to get to this place where I could stay calm enough. I could recognize what was actually happening. I could look at the iceberg of what was underneath the surface of his unmet needs and his lagging skills and his inability to be able to handle disappointment whenever he was tired and the circumstances did not meet his expectations. It's taken me a long time to get to this place. So, here are three ways that you can start doing three things that you can start doing now to help build frustration tolerance in your kids. And number one is to stay present.

[00:19:41]You don't need to fix it. You can think to yourself, this is an opportunity for them to build a really awesome skill.

[00:19:49]And yes, I did have that conversation with myself. we have an opportunity.

[00:19:54]Even though he kept saying, "Let's go home. Let's go home. Let's go home. We have an opportunity. We have an opportunity." That's why I just kept playing in my head. And so, when your kid is frustrated or disappointed, resist the urge to immediately solve it.

[00:20:06]Check in with yourself first. Oh, I have some tightness in my chest or I am aware that I have thoughts that are telling me that I just want to stop this. Just become aware and then you can name it. I can see you're really upset right now. I can see that you wanted to play and the other boys got to go in. I'm just validating how he is feeling. And then two is let natural disappointment happen. Not every hard moment needs to be softened. You know the having to wait in line or losing a game or a plan that fell apart. These are low stakes training grounds for real resilience. It gives them an opportunity. This is what consequences, natural consequences are.

[00:20:55]If something happens or today, my son went to church camp and before we got out of the car, I asked him if he had his water bottle. I don't think he heard me. I didn't double check. I picked him up. I'm so thirsty. They did have water stations. He was able to drink water.

[00:21:11]Thank goodness because it is hot again where we live. Uh but he didn't have one with him, and that is a natural consequence. And so for tomorrow, instead of okay, I'm gonna double check his bag. I'm gonna make sure he has his water because if he doesn't have his water, that means I'm a bad mom. Nope. I am going I sat with him and said, "Hey, what can we do tomorrow so that you can remember your water bottle?" And he already put it in his bag and that was something he came up with and for him to be able to actually learn from something that he did not do today and he really wanted that water. I had read a bunch of books on this when my kids were younger and I took it as, "Oh, I can't rescue them at all." No, you can still rescue them. You could still attune to what their needs are, but what is the lagging skill? How can you build that skill?

[00:22:03]When I get in the car in the morning with my kids and I see that they're missing a backpack, I don't say, "Oh, go get your backpack." I say, "I wonder what you're missing." That gives them the opportun opportunity to look around the car and think, "Oh, I don't have my backpack." Then they have that autonomy and choice to run into the house to go get it. And that is how we build these skills for our kids versus just doing it for them. And then the third takeaway is to reconnect after the hard moment. And you know, you don't have to end the frustration. Allow them to feel it and fully feel it. And if you're feeling frustrated, allow yourself to feel that frustration too or that agitation as I had discussed that I was having. And then you want to reconnect or maybe you weren't able to stay regulated during the moment and you were um or you allowed your agitation to run the show. Then we want to come back to repair. But do a little reconnection uh and you know repair so that you can deepen that connection uh with your child. And what the work we do now is a long game. What we do now if we can help build these skills and show up for our kids even when I'm going to say it are being whenever they're being turds. No.

[00:23:27]If they're acting like little turds. If they are acting in ways that might make us feel comfortable, but it's only be probably because our parents were uncomfortable. We can break those chains and we can allow them to feel their feelings. We can allow ourselves to feel our feelings and we can build frustration tolerance so that we can handle whatever life throws at