When your child keeps failing at something and can't things get right: coming up with a plan to help them (Pt. 2)
When our child struggles, the wrong interventions can damage our child's confidence and our relationship. Here are some traps to avoid and suggestions to do it well.
Last week I wrote about a concept called the “Zone of Proximal Development,” or, as I like to think of it, Empowerment Zones.
The idea is pretty simple and intuitive, but powerful.
Helping a child move between what they can currently do and what we want them to be able to do requires us to provide some kind of resources, information, tools, or structures. In my experience, the thing a teen needs most is structural help: routines, systems, etc. We refer to the kind of help we provide scaffolding.
This concept is particularly helpful when your child is consistently struggling to do something or having the same problems over and over.
Last week I shared some good and bad examples of this sort of scaffolding. I also shared the difference between merely being a helicopter, snow plow, or Alexa parent and creating helpful examples of scaffolding for our children. Hint: If the plan consists of trying to make someone else change something to accommodate your child, or if your plan requires you to do more, it’s a big red flag. (N.B. I am not talking about cases where schools are legally required to provide reasonable accommodations to a student, nor am I talking about making other necessary adjustments for important reasons).
At any rate here are a few more thoughts, warnings, and examples.
A simple example
I ask my students to bring a specific set of supplies to class, and if they don’t, it wastes time because they need to go back to their lockers, or they have to borrow from someone else. In these cases, I sometimes deduct a point.
However, some kids just truly struggle to bring their materials. They can’t remember, for whatever reasons. I can keep taking points off in these cases, but if I take 30 seconds and ask them what would work, it usually fixes the problem.
For example, I have made signs for their lockers, for example, or put sticky notes on binders or binders or laptops. I have had them set a reminder on their calendars, and various other simple interventions. The most effective examples of this scaffolding happened when I involved them in the proposed plan.
When to let them fail—and when to help.
When you hear people—myself included—talk about letting your child fail and learning from the consequences, I want to make it clear that I don't mean we should just let them go on failing indefinitely without any intervention. There does need to be some help and support—intervention of some kind.
The problem, however, is that people often interpret the idea of intervention as getting someone else to do something differently for their child.
There will be occasional—and rare—exceptions, but interventions should generally involve helping a child meet expectations, as opposed to trying to get other people to change the expectations.
This is critical, and it doesn’t have to do with trying to be considerate of others or overstepping our bounds. It isn’t about making the lives of teachers coaches or administrators easier, although that is a nice outcome.
No, the reason we need to help our child meet expectations is for our child’s sake: We are each most empowered when we focus on our own choices—not on those of other people. Understanding that is the key to a happy, autonomous, productive life with fulfilling relationships. Those who never learn this lesson struggle in so many areas for the rest of their life. It’s important to teach that to our children.
The best and most effective interventions will generally require us, the parents, to do the work to help our child do their work. We don’t help our children when we try to change the path to suit them. Rather, we help them most by trying to prepare the child for the path.
Handle with care! Actively avoid allying yourself with shame, guilt, and insecurities.
Often when a child is not executing something well, they are very aware— sometimes all too aware. They are likely feeling stress and even distress. They might be carrying guilt and shame. They may have already decided they are incompetent or hopeless or stupid—and kids can be pretty hard on themselves.
This is all the more likely if they have struggled for a while, or if the thing they are struggling with is contradictory to things you have signaled—overtly or inadvertently—are important and high-value to you and the family.
Be careful to not focus too much on small things. Don’t spend time or energy trying to address symptoms or markers. For example, do you want your child to keep an A average, or do you want your child to work diligently, do the best they can, and learn? The two are not the same.
Give grace. Make sure you always act in ways that don’t make your child think you value a particular action or achievement on their part more than you value them.
Don’t react and parent based on your embarrassment or some optimal ideal or image you have.
One of the best pieces of advice for parenting and teaching I ever heard was this: fix the problem, not the incident that brings the problem to your attention.
Realize that, because of the power differential between you and your child, you will have to actively work to reassure them that you love them more than a science grade or completion of homework or social graces or being cheerful at home—or whatever the “it” is.
Kids are highly, constantly, exquisitely attuned to approval—even if they don’t seem to be. Internally, they often exaggerate their flaws and faults—even if they don’t seem to act that way.
They care very deeply what their parents think, even if it doesn’t seem that way. They need love and approval even when they “deserve” it the least.
Preserving the relationship for the long haul is far more important than any specific problem to be solved.
Don’t ally yourself and your wishes and your child’s struggles with shame, guilt, or insecurity. They will not help accomplish anything good and may cause lasting friction and harm in your child’s mind and heart—and in your relationship.
These are scars that can take a very long time to heal.
In all of this remember intent vs. impact. We parents often think our intent will be obvious to our children, but our impact can be very different.
Here’s the hard reality we must remember: we don’t get to decide our impact. We can’t explain it away. It is what our child feels it is.
Questioning our first parenting impulses: why I think we err to various extremes.
So often when kids struggle with normal adolescent issues: school work, peers, behavior at home, or any number of things, we go to one of two extremes: 1) we either justify the problem or blame others; or, 2) we blame the child and try to hold them accountable without providing support.
Those of us who are more likely to err on the side of being too quick to blame our child were likely raised in a different era, and it’s what we experienced and are familiar with: be strict and hold them accountable (and, to be fair, that is how our parents were raised as well—people have done the best they could with the knowledge they had). That isn’t always bad—it can be good—but it can also go too far and may blind us to times when our child needs some help to move from one zone to the next.
On the other hand, I think we are sometimes likely to err on the side of just excusing them or blaming others because we don’t want to make the first mistake. We may think that the only other alternative is to blame them and we know deep down that this doesn’t feel right. So, we go to the opposite extreme and rationalize and excuse.
Whatever our reasons, however, It breaks my heart when I see either of these extremes, but I have to admit, the thing that makes me saddest is hearing about parents who habitually excuse and enable and explain away their child’s mistakes, weaknesses, and flaws, trying to constantly run interference and trying to get other people to adjust. I have seen that with greater frequency in recent years.
I am sad when I see the other extreme as well and know that too much harshness and accountability can also leave scars. It’s just that I don’t think this happens as much as the more indulgent error.
Revisit your expectations and think about Goldilocks.
When your child is consistently operating below important expectations, think carefully about the expectations. Chances are they need some help growing into them. We don’t want to simply excuse them, nor do we want to blame them without providing help. We want to empower them.
You can think about this as Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development, or you can also think about it as Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We need to help our children avoid tasks that are too hard and too easy and go for just right.
And when it is too hard, we have to thoughtfully come up with some steps, tools, or structures to help them.
Creating a plan to build competence
Having a plan for what you can expect and how you will provide scaffolding is going to be important.
Start by mapping out what is fair to expect now, based on their limitations. See clearly where you want them to get—be specific about this.
Try to understand the problem, not the incident that brings it to your attention. For example, is it a homework problem or is it an organization problem? Is it procrastination or disorganization and feeling overwhelmed? Is it laziness or time management?
If there are multiple things your child is struggling with, do a triage. Focus on a single problem or behavior and think about doable intermediate steps.
It can be a lot to think about, but I would argue that if you can spend some time thinking about these and come up with a consistent plan or some parameters, it will save you not only time but an inordinate amount of emotional churn and stress.
Let me make a really important suggestion. Anytime you are trying to get your child to do something challenging, come up with small steps (like the psychologist instructed me to do with my child). Making them small is important because you want to create a sense of momentum and competence.
Just remember this: no plan is perfect and very few plans work as well in reality as they do in our minds. Don’t be surprised if you need to adjust the plan—maybe several times.
Don’t be tempted to keep trying to force your brilliant plan on the child if the plan doesn’t work. It has to work for them, not for you.
In addition to finding the right path for your child, modeling the process of trying, revising, and trying again is a wonderful life lesson for your child.
Creating the right plan, parameters, and scaffolding
How do you decide what the right plan is and what the parameters are? How do figure out the right scaffolding?
Well, for some things you may need to get some testing or the guidance of a professional.
But most times, for common, garden-variety problems of a child’s maturity and/or maturity not being great enough to accomplish a desired end, you start by looking carefully. You consciously observe their success and failures. You try to look for patterns. Chances are, if you do, you'll start seeing things.
The other thing I would encourage is to just talk to your child and ask them. Now, it's important that you don't do this in any way that they start associating with a punishment or being in trouble.
But I have always found that kids are very susceptible to discussions of problems when I say, “Okay, here's the problem, I need your help.”
I would encourage you to read these tips I've written up before on talking with adolescents (especially numbers 7, 8, and 9), on when and how to do it, and most of all, how not to do it.
Create positive momentum: tiny, minuscule baby steps
Try to find small, tiny baby steps that will help them feel that they can do this
A child who feels like they are making progress will do better.
Prioritize helping them experience some degree of success.
Also, when they do something well, reward and reward and provide incentives!
Incentives, incentives, incentives!
Think about all we adults do for incentives. We work out for health. We go to work for a paycheck. Almost all the big things, the things in our lives, that take lots of discipline and effort, are things we do for incentives.
Think about places where we are expected to do something because it’s a rule or because we’ll be punished. How many people drive the speed limit? How many people push the limit, even knowing they might get a ticket?
The truth is that, in a free society, punishments and penalties rarely motivate sincere, ongoing, positive behaviors. Incentives, however, are very powerful. (I’ve written more on this topic, here.)
At some point, you will need to cut back on the incentives and help develop intrinsic motivation, but when you are trying to create positive momentum and build confidence and competence, I find rewards are an excellent way to get things kick-started.
Just be careful to make sure the incentives will be meaningful for your child. Sometimes you will know, but letting them choose is always wise since we often see the world very differently than they do.
Next week, I’ll finish up on this topic with a few more thoughts.
Until then, happy parenting; you’ve got this—assisted by the magic of carefully thought-out scaffolding!
Sincerely,
Braden