Frustration Tolerance and Why it's Important
Frustration is a familiar feeling no matter who you are. No matter what age, gender, nationality, or spirituality you identify with, you know what it means to feel frustrated. It’s also likely that you know that frustration rises inside us when we want a certain outcome from our efforts and, for whatever reason, we do not achieve that outcome.
You could be trying to learn a new skill and your progress doesn’t look the way you think it should. You could be trying to affect some change in our society, but improvement doesn’t come quickly enough, if at all. You could be trying to hold a boundary with your friend or loved one that they just keep crossing. All of these situations cause us to feel frustrated and they all have an element of personal effort and an undesirable outcome.
Now that I have introduced frustration, I’m going to talk about why it exists, why we need it, and why the tolerance of our frustration is key for a great life. I’ll then tell you ways you can increase frustration tolerance in your children.
“Willingly exposing our children to negative emotions?! That sounds brutal, Ben! ” It is, but stay with me. It’s not that bad, and the reason why is that your children have the capacity to be tough and resilient.
This is the spot in which I’ll put my usual disclaimer: Every family, child, parent, and situation is different. The examples you read in this blog may not apply directly to your situation, but my hope is that you can adapt what you read here into a stratagem that will be useful in the context of your particular family.
Frustration is an emotion that simultaneously tells us that what we’re doing isn’t working, and then drives us to try again.
The best way (for me) to understand why we have frustration is to look at it from an evolutionary perspective. When our ancestors were trying to achieve something new you know they didn’t get it right the first time. The very idea that someone created something like the wheel on the first try? Absolutely preposterous. Hilarious, even. But because frustration exists, we were able to achieve literally every technological advancement we as humans have achieved so far because we tried again.
This really dovetails nicely into the idea that being able to tolerate frustration is extremely important for a great life.
Learning, improvement, and achievement essentially can’t be had without feeling some frustration. All three of those things are important to all the parents I know. (Achievement isn’t everything, but we do want our children to achieve growth.) If our children don’t learn to tolerate frustration, the results can be–forgive me–really frustrating as a parent.
In a podcast called Huberman Lab, the host, Dr. Andrew Huberman and his guest Dr. Becky Kennedy were discussing different parenting protocols when frustration tolerance came up in the discourse. Dr. Becky shared a story about one of her clients that I’ll paraphrase here: an older teen, upon learning that he was flying to Hawa’ii in coach instead of first class, started yelling at his parents and essentially throwing a fit in the airport. The parents wondered how this had gotten so bad, and Dr. Becky let them know that by doing backflips to solve their son’s problems for him immediately whenever he felt frustration or disappointment, he learned to do exactly what he did: throw a fit, and wait for his parents to fix it.
Now, most parents have given in at least once to a loud protest from a child (I’m certainly guilty of this), and some children feel their feelings much stronger than others, making it hard for parents to simply let them feel. But if “fixing” is the consistent response to a child’s frustration throughout the child’s life, this somewhat horrifying example can be the outcome.
So what do we do to prevent something like this? We generate opportunities for our children to learn how to be frustrated and respond to their frustration properly by trying again or (reframing in the case of an actually impossible task, but that’s another blog).
I have some anecdata to support this (anecdote + data). There was a woman who owned a smoothie shop next to a gym I used to go to. One day while she was making a smoothie for me, I noticed she had several plaques on the wall reflecting athletic achievements. I asked about them and she told me that all 3 of her daughters were NCAA Division 1 athletes. As a new parent of an 18-month-old at the time, I asked her what the secret was–how did all 3 of her daughters achieve so much? She asked me how old my daughter was, I told her, then she told me “When you’re with your daughter and she tries to do something, never do anything for her. Let her get upset, wait, then help her try again when she’s ready.”
It’s definitely not to say that if you do this with your children, they will assuredly become stellar athletes, but I do think there are dots to connect between athletics and frustration tolerance.
“Okay Ben, I’m sold on frustration tolerance. But how am I supposed to create more opportunities for them to be frustrated?” Creating opportunities for your child to be frustrated and work through that sounds cruel, but it can be done in a very natural way that won’t feel like you’re trying to make your kid angry. As always, here’s your actionable list for recognizing frustration and what to do when it’s happening:
Make use of naturally occurring frustrations.
Homework, changing plans, and other challenging new skills are all great opportunities for children to work on their frustration tolerance. Whenever a child is practicing something they normally do is a great time to label the emotion, (ala “You’re feeling frustrated,” or “Man, it’s tough when it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to.”) Then for the most part watch and wait. You can offer empathy, as well as suggestions like, “We can take a 5-minute break and come back to it,” or something along those lines.
Board games are great!
As you do with all of these, you want to choose something age-appropriate, but for younger children, games like Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders are perfect for teaching frustration tolerance. Anyone who has fallen down the final and steepest chute in Chutes and Ladders or drawn the cupcake card in Candy Land knows exactly what I’m talking about. These games are brutal, but they’re very effective at teaching this skill. If your child is a bit older (and perhaps a little competitive) you can teach them something like Uno, Sequence, or other classic card games.
Draw attention to previous triumphs.
If you’ve read my other blog on agency, you know this is one of my favorites. After you’ve validated the frustration, you can say, “Remember when you used to struggle with X and now you have no problem with that? You can do this!” Reinforcing the idea to your child that they are resilient and can take on challenges is powerful in the formation of your child’s sense of self. To reinforce this idea, any statement along the lines of “it is hard, and I know you can do it.” is what you want to shoot for. Even if it seems like it doesn’t do much in the moment, I assure you it does.
Don’t save them!
You can offer validation by demonstrating to your child that you understand their frustration, and you can encourage them with something like, “I know you can do this.” Outside of that, you have to resist the temptation to swoop in and try to take the frustration away from them! If you do, you’re sending the message that they need you in order to deal with their negative emotions. Remember this is something they must learn to help themselves with, so just provide a safe space for them to do so.
Show no fear!
Easier said than done to be sure, especially for those parents of children that have destructive behaviors as a result of their frustration. But it’s imperative that you send the message to your child that you are not afraid of their frustration, and they shouldn’t be either. When you don’t fear their frustration, you communicate to them that what they’re frustrated about is the reality; you won’t swoop in to fix it, so their only option is to find their way through it. Do what you have to to make sure everyone is safe, but disengage while staying in the room if you can (“let me know when you’re ready to talk about it” is a good script here). You are there to support them and cheer them on, but they have to be the one to figure out what they need to do to overcome their feelings. Stay sturdy in the face of their negative emotions–it will go a long way.
I hope this has been a nice romp through the weeds of frustration tolerance. My wish is that this blog has helped add some tools in your tool belt as you continue your journey toward parenting resilient, antifragile children. For those parents of constantly frustrated children, know that you can do this, and so can they! Once they learn this skill, everything is smoother.
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WRITTEN BY Ben Kinsey, LMSW (He/Him/His)
I have worked with children and families in many different contexts: Summer camps, schools, foster care and children's shelters, hospitals, medical clinics, and private therapy. I've worked with teens, toddlers, and everyone in between. I can tell you one thing for certain: there is no handbook for the challenges and hardship you and your child are facing, both in and outside your relationship with one another. The goal in my room is to give your child the tools to cope with and navigate through any troubles they may be wrestling with, and with the family's support, empower them to use those same tools in the future.
