When Life Feels Unfair: Helping Your Teen Cope with Disappointment

Suddenly, the news of the school and middle school, the pods come out, and your child is in one pod and all of the friends are in another. And your child's devastated.

So when supporting our teen, stop and think for a moment. What is my role here as a parent? What is my goal?

And so thinking through, and if I don't do anything, what might that mean? You know, there there's always the gain of learning to sit with and manage disappointment.

Welcome back to the Parenting Pair Podcast. I'm Dr. Suzanne Allen.

And I'm Dr. Annalise Caron.

And today we're going to be talking about those kind of gut wrenching moments when something really unfair happens to our teen or tween and how to handle it for ourselves and for them. So we're going

to sort of talk through this and really try to help you guys, parents, think through like when do I step in or when do I kind of step out and not try to fix it and how to think about it, right? So that we don't get ourselves caught up in the unfairness and anxiety at all because that's very hard

to do. Yep. So kind of picture this, right? You know, let's imagine you have a daughter and she's been playing high school basketball all three years before her senior year, and she's a great teammate, and she has missed even winter family vacations to stay behind for the practices. And there was even a team incident where other players got caught kind of drinking on an away tournament.

She wasn't involved in that, right? Your family's hosted some of the team dinners. You're doing all the things. All the things. And she's a good athlete.

We get to senior year and she gets cut from the team. And not only is she cut, but maybe some of the other girls that had some of these other struggles earlier on make the team over her.

Yeah. Right? Ugh. The emotion I feel the emotion of it. Right?

Right? Yeah. You know, but it can be that, you know, or if you have a younger child, it can be something that's almost simpler but can be equally gut punching, where it's like suddenly the, you know, as we're at the beginning of school here, the news of this the school and middle school, the pods or the communities or whatever they call them, you know, where you live, come out and your child is in one pod and all of the friends are in another. Oh, yeah. Right?

And your child's devastated, just like this teenager that you described is devastated. And as a

parent, right, it's so just so quickly, my mind, in both scenarios, jumped to like, what does this mean for them socially? Are they totally gonna miss out? They're not gonna be a part of things. What if this puts them on a track of, you know, a terrible sense of self? Like, just in my mind, like, all of those kind of what ifs.

Because you see your child's distress, and you wanna help them with their distress, and children and teens' distress does tend to foster parental anxiety and distress. But so so that that makes sense, Suzanne, what you just said there. Yep. Again, just briefly, I want to acknowledge what we're talking about here. Albeit though these things can be quite crushing to kids and at times can lead to mental health concerns, you know, depending upon how they're handled and how they sort of learn to think about them themselves.

We also need to acknowledge that some families are facing, you know, kind of ongoing unfairness and injustice that is much greater than not getting in the right pod or not, you know, being able to get back on the basketball team. And those families probably are well aware of everything we're going to say today and probably have a different type of resilience and have learned to manage acceptance in different ways that's a little bit different than what we're going to be talk about talking about here. That could be another podcast. Yeah. Because we can learn a lot from those families, but they require a different level of awareness and attention.

Yeah. Okay. That's discount these other types of unfairness, right? Not at Because your unfairness, your teens or your tween's unfairness is still painful and it's yours to have to manage and cope with. So, okay.

So we're going to kind of go with this from two different angles. Part one, we're going to work on and think about how can you help support your teen. And then part two, we're going to transition into how can you help yourself. Right. Because this is very painful as an observer of this unfairness.

Right. I think it may even be useful for our listeners to bring a recent just one that comes to mind moment of feelings of great unfairness towards your child to mind. Just to ground our discussion moving forward, take a moment and think. Bring one up.

Okay. Okay. So in supporting our teen, I often have parents share the story of the unfairness with me and then try to help them stop and think for a moment and answer a couple of questions. What is my role here as a What is my role? What is my goal?

Right. Because the answers to those questions can lead us down two very different paths or a couple of different paths.

Well, one natural path I think is, do I do something? Yes. Right? Oftentimes when there's unfairness or stress in a family, it's like, I need to do something about it. So do I try to step in and fix or change this?

Mhmm.

Do I get my child's lunch wave

changed? Adjust the pod or whatever. Right. Do I do I do something? Call attention.

Or do I try to help my child manage their disappointment about this unfortunate situation?

Mhmm. Right. And both have equal And I'm not sure that in any one moment, you know, because we can't predict the future, it can be very difficult to say like, this is the right decision. You should go this way or not. I think this is where a lot of times we help parents in our office kind of sit with the gains and losses of both sides.

What might you gain from calling the school and asking for this change? What might you lose if you reach out to the coach and advocate for your daughter to be on the team?

Because though, you know, maybe your daughter really feels she deserves to be on the team and you do too, and there are many good reasons for this, maybe knowing that coach or maybe knowing the social ramifications for your daughter if you make that move, maybe even though that is in the world of rights or what we think is the correct way to go, we if if we nudge in that direction, I I always say just think about, like, if you pushed a little bit in that journey, if if you made the call or if you talk to some other parents. Okay. Maybe there are losses that come with that too. There's the possibility of this being reconsidered, maybe, maybe not, or even just being heard out. But maybe if that becomes public knowledge, that causes problems for your daughter at school that she doesn't want.

Right? And so thinking through, and if I don't do anything, what might that mean? Right? And there could be gains. There's always the gain of learning to sit with and manage disappointment, which is a skill because life is full of many times that things don't go the way we want.

And I think building, there are times where it's appropriate to build that resilience to when things don't go the way you want.

Yeah. Those are two important lessons, right, to learn how to advocate and stand up for when things don't seem But right or there is also a very significant place for learning to cope with disappointment, frustrations, loss, because that is going to happen as well. Right. And I think irregardless of where you sit, once you go kind of through that process of what's my goal, what might my gains and losses be, I think irregardless of which direction you're going in, there are two kind of like mantras or phrases that we would encourage parents

I've got one.

To stay with. Okay. Alright. Give me yours. Well, think

I'm so curious what the second one is because that's not on my mind. But I think the first one is that our job is to really attempt to, even if we don't feel inside, stay steady, stay calm. Right? I hear you say sometimes, be the Buddha. Be the Buddha in the road.

Right? So even though we may not feel that emotionally inside, really working to try to center ourselves and stay steady because our teenager going through this unfairness, regardless of whether you fix it or don't fix it or reach out or don't, they need that from us.

Yep. Yeah. I mean, the Buddha on the road for me is the the visual I always use because I just picture one of those beautiful little statues just kind of peacefully sitting and like a busy, busy road with everything flying by, all the emotions, all the things that could happen, not happen, the embarrassment, the frustration, the sadness, and just my teen is kind of whipped up into that. They are the car zooming amongst all the cars, and the more that I can kind of stay, you know, that steady or calm anchor or that Buddha in the road, the better it is for them and I can become a safe base to help them navigate this really tricky road.

And you want to be that person Yeah. That they trust to come to, or is there a safe place to fall because they're having to go into school and be in the wrong pod, or they're having to come home from school without going to basketball practice. And they need to not have your or they would benefit, excuse me, need. They would benefit from not having your emotionality or your disappointment be really layered on their own. Yep.

Because that came back to me, Suzanne. The second sort of mantra to remind yourself, thank you

for that You're leaving behind to it. Is

it's theirs. Yes. It is not yours. They are you feel as though you're dealing with this. You're feeling the indignation and frustration and unfairness as a parent, and that's real.

But this is theirs, and we need to honor that. They're the one going through it, navigating it at school every day, and we have to honor that for them.

And we are not telling parents that you have to feel calm, you have to not have emotions about this. Right? We're we told you, we're gonna get to part two here with what to do with all those emotions for yourself because it's very natural and normal that you're gonna have a lot of swirling yourself. But in the moment with them, when we let it be theirs, we allow their emotions and what they need to talk about to take up the space, and we kind of hold ours, and we'll tell you what to do with those later, but to give them the space to work through this because sometimes and I've absolutely done this, and and if you ever meet any of my kids, ask them this, like I'm a big emotion person, and there have been times where I've gone into something or I've reacted to something.

I've seen

it. Yeah. Oh, in Annalise's office, if we had a video camera on that, when I walk in and explode all over. Where my emotions, my reaction has been so big and strong that I have actually visibly seen like my kid's reaction shrink as a result of it, because it's mine is too much. Yep.

And and especially as they've gotten to the teenage years, they don't wanna hear it either because it is theirs and it feels like theirs. And so they want me to back off, let it be theirs, and help them navigate and figure out what

to your job.

Yes.

That is your job. Yep. And so what do we do?

Yes. What does this actually look like?

What does that look like if you really are that Buddha in the road? If you bring that calmness and steadiness to yourself and you remind yourself it's theirs, in action, that means don't jump in and problem solve. Don't tell them what to do.

Let them vent. Let them say the things. Let them talk it through you. Be validating. Be warm.

Be understanding, and watch out for that. Well, I'll just call the school. Well, I'm gonna let them know that you had all these social struggles earlier, so you can't be Right? Like, you you might do those things. You might get there.

You might call school, but we don't need to go there yet. Let them tell you. Let them talk it through. Let them vent and talk about their emotions, and you hold them and hold back on the problem solving at first.

And it's very very difficult sometimes to do when parents have high emotionality. But I do liken it too, as we get into the tween and certainly the teen, you know, and young adult years, just imagine for yourself, if you're someone, you know, whether you're talking to a friend or talking to a spouse or partner, you know, if you had something going on and that person just came in and said, well, you need to do this about it and you need to do that about it. And if someone immediately jumps in and does that, it feels a little violating, like they're not really listening to you. And maybe you, you know, you aren't ready to make a decision and it feels inappropriate. That's how our teens feel.

And we tend to, when that happens, shut people off. Well, they're not listening to me. They don't care about me. And our teens feel that. When we make it ours and when we start problem solving and doing and saying I'm gonna do this or that, when they were younger, they might have much younger, they might have felt a little supported.

Now it's theirs and that's interfering.

Mhmm.

Yep. And kids resent it.

And I'll be honest with you, even as adults, I get willful and I actually wanna do the opposite of what someone tells me.

Whatever they tell you.

Or I discount what they've told me and tell them why it doesn't work. Right? So it derails the whole conversation. And probably I'm willful in ways teens are.

So So that that leads to ask your teen how they want to handle it or what possibilities they thought are ways to handle it and work with those. Help them if they're willing. Sometimes it takes some time for their emotion to come down to where they can go towards problem solving if there's problem solving to be done. Right? It might just be accepting that the thing is unfair and navigating that.

But if there's something to do, helping them think through what's the best step for them.

And something to do might be accepting it and trying to move forward living within that reality. So allow that to be a choice too, and not just act like that's giving up or not doing anything because it's actually very much an active choice to practice living and dealing with something that is difficult and that maybe you can't change or you need to accept.

And I think we have to remember that that is doing. Like sometimes quote unquote doing nothing or not acting takes a hell of a lot of integrity and stamina and emotional work to get through that. And so we need to respect that that is a choice and one that's equally difficult. But it may be good. Unless, of course, there's like safety at risk or severe social injustice in some way, like some sort of severe bullying or something like that, then we wouldn't want to just let that sit and chronically go.

But we would allow, we'd want our teens to have their emotions about it and really try to help them think through what they might want to do about it as opposed to us just taking it over.

And I would also just say be wary parents too of silver linings, you know, and jumping to that right away. It's so invalidating. Yes, it is. And you know, your teen will get there or might get there at some point or maybe not. But when we jump to right away, well, you know, now this gives you more time to work on your college applications.

No one wants to. Or, you know, or, you know, whatever it is. Like, this is gonna make you stronger in the end. In the moment, if your child is devastated, sad, upset by something, thinking about how it's making them stronger, that that's not a bad message, and maybe they're ready for it, but just be careful with that because sometimes that can work to discount the sadness and tell them inadvertently, Don't be sad about this. Think about it this way and be happy, when it's actually okay for them to feel that sadness and disappointment.

Those are building up some of those emotional muscles, those coping muscles.

100%. So just to summarize, with regard to our teen and sort of in our role as parents, we are going to work to be that Buddha in the road, be steady. We are going to remind ourselves it's theirs. And in our actions, we're not going to jump to problem solving. We're going to help them think it through, sort of listen to their ideas.

We're going to respect them if they choose, acceptance and moving on. Right? Yep. And we're not going to jump to those silver linings, I

guess. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to watch for them. Yeah.

Okay. Now let's shift to ourselves as parents because you are important also, and it is very difficult to be the holder of your teen or your child's distress and just do that. You know, we we wouldn't expect that you can just hold all kinds of distress and you'll be fine. Somehow suck it up and deal with it. Right?

We need our own strategies to manage this stuff.

I think we need to acknowledge. Instead of just acting in it and doing, just acknowledge our own grief, our own sadness, our own anger. And when we have emotions like that, which are normal, we want to remind ourselves that this will change, this won't be forever. But there are things that we can do to sort of help ourselves with our own emotion regulation and management, right?

Yep. And going along with that, like acknowledging your own emotions, I would say too that a second part of this is find your own safe ways to vent, right? We're telling you in this space with your teen, let their emotions kind of take up the room. Who are your people that you can vent to, that you can express your frustration with? Like who are your supports?

And have that not be your teen. I have a good friend who I think listens to this podcast, and I'm so appreciative to her. She said to me years ago, every day you get five minutes to be ugly, to to say the ugly And so you can always call me and you get five minute and if you want to take three minutes now, you got two minutes later in the day. You can call me back and talk about how unfair, how awful, you can be judgmental, like, you know, and listen, if that doesn't help you, then don't do it. But let your if that helps, let yourself have five minutes to vent without checking yourself.

Your friend is brilliant because actually in therapy, I do both worry time and rumination time. So have all those negative thoughts. Let just flood yourself with them. And and and it's wonderful if you can do it with a friend and and get that validation and allow that to come out. But also don't let that be your whole day.

Don't let that be what you bring to every interaction because it drains you and it's unhelpful for you and for your teen.

Yep.

Yeah. Oh, I love that.

Yep. And as you pointed out, it's great if you have a friend or some compassionate listener. If you don't, guess what? Stomp around your house and say it when no one is home. Yell it out in your car, like, whatever.

But be careful of the, like like you said, keeping it kind of going and going and ruminating on it. Like, give yourself those couple of minutes to vent if that helps you and then move on.

And I do think also basic self care. When you're feeling really upset, if you are you know, protect your sleep, you know, prioritize healthy habits, know, see that good friend, take a walk in nature, do the things that just help give you a little bit of shock absorption to those big emotions that you very understandably have. It goes a long way because our teens are going come home from school or come home from wherever they are and bring all of their emotions to us, those big emotions. And so to take care of yourself a little bit to the degree you can. I know it's easier said than done.

It might be a five minute walk around, you know, the office building at work or whatever it is to just re center yourself. It's important. Mhmm. Right?

So we have acknowledging your emotions, being mindful and setting aside some time to take care of yourself so that you can absorb some of the shock when you need to. Have some safe ways to vent.

Five minutes a day to be ugly. I love that. Keep going.

Then I think finally we would love to offer the skill or the practice of radical acceptance. And you know, accepting something doesn't mean that you like it. Actually, you can hate something and work on accepting it. It is choosing how to face something and how to move forward and live within the reality of that existing, whether or not you like it. So it is not giving up, it's not resigning yourself to the fact, it is saying, This is the way it is and I'm going to keep moving forward.

Right. And that does allow for growth and resilience over time. It really is not giving up. It really is not submitting. Sometimes you have to honor the truth as it is or the situation as it is.

And I'd just like to add to what Suzanne just said, that this is a process and a commitment. This is a commitment in your mind to turn your mind towards that acceptance over and over again because we forget. And emotion hijacks us and brings us back to those other thoughts. But the more that we can lean into that acceptance, No, this is the choice I'm making or this is the choice my teen made, and that's okay. And we're going to be okay.

And she's going to be okay.

And in real life, that might look like, you know, starting with the example or going back to the example we brought up, if, you know, a month into the basketball season your daughter says, I want to go to the game and watch my friends, will you come with me? That may be you taking a breath in your own mind saying, this is going to be hard and I really wish she was playing, but I can do this and I can go with her. And radical acceptance may be agreeing to go to that.

But imagine if you hadn't done that radical acceptance and you were still in that heightened state of anger, you might not be that steady and fun presence that your daughter needs. And so that's really important. It's important to also mention that there are real benefits to practicing radical acceptance and turning your mind towards acceptance over and over again because research does show that it reduces suffering. It reduces the pain that we experience for things that are unchangeable.

Yeah. It helps you adapt. It helps your teen adapt, so it really models a sense of resilience to them as well.

Yeah. And I remind people of something. When we go through our lives, when we face difficult things, when we face things that are unfair but we get through them, we remember that. And that provides growth and resilience and strength that we take forward. And so that is an action and that can be an incredibly empowering thing for people to be able to do, to not allow themselves to get stuck in something that is very disappointing.

But that acceptance kind of over time frees them from that.

So I wanna maybe take the moment just to give everyone a quick little practice of radical acceptance right now. And so you had asked parents in the beginning of this podcast to think about a moment of unfairness or kind of injustice that they had experienced. And so I'd ask everyone to kind of bring your attention back to that moment and maybe say to yourself in your own mind, I'm gonna make a choice to accept this. Let's take a deep breath. If you need to, maybe shift your posture.

If you're noticing shoulders are hunched to something that just feels a little bit more open, a little bit more relaxed, dropping those shoulders. Maybe even thinking about this unfairness and trying a half smile, which is exactly what it sounds like when you kind of bring a slight smile to your face, and even thinking about how you might shift your perspective to approach this situation differently, whether that's saying, I can handle this. I can help my teen handle this. This will make us stronger.

And you're not defined by this moment?

Okay.

What's amazing about that, I have probably done that hundreds of times, I mean, in our work. It always changes. Before you even said it, my posture changed. And the half smile, the openness that I feel and just a little bit of joy, it's really remarkable.

Mhmm. The half smile to me, every time I see it, always the words I always look at, I'm like, that's so silly.

And then I do it. And a half smile means what it sounds like. It's just

Just put a little bit of smile on your face while you're thinking And about the

while you're practicing that acceptance and living with it.

Yeah. It's remarkable. It can help you feel more capable to tackle those things that sometimes we just can't change or are very difficult to change, or we need to accept. Yeah. So I think yep.

That brings us to what now, Suzanne?

Yeah. I'm gonna stop talking because if not, we're gonna say it in unison with each other. What now? Okay. Our two mantras.

Yep. Let's drive those home. It is theirs.

Yep. And stay steady. Be that Buddha in the road.

And maybe, you know, try a couple times this week in those difficult moments. You know, see you see the person who's really hurt you or hurt your kid or you have to walk into something that just feels so unfair and awful. Like, take a moment, steady your breathing, steady your body, put a half smile on, practice that radical acceptance, and move forward.

Thirty seconds can do amazing work in yourself to be able to handle things that feel really difficult. And in that whizzing life around that Buddha that Suzanne described earlier, it feels hard to do, but it can mean a world of difference for you and your teen.

If you're listening to this today and thinking, Oh my gosh, I have a friend who's really going through something pretty unfair, or I know someone that this could really help, please forward this episode to them. We would appreciate it and we hope that it can be helpful to you and the people that you care about.

Yeah. And if you've enjoyed this or any of our other podcasts, we would greatly, appreciate it if you would give a rating just because that helps us, you know, get it out to more people. As always, if you have feedback for us, don't hesitate to DM us on Instagram at The Parenting Pair or email us at hellotheparentingpair dot com.

And we'll see you next week.

Yeah. Have a good one. Bye. And now a quick word from our lawyers. The Parenting Pair Podcast is designed for informational and educational purposes only.

Do not rely on the information presented in this podcast as a substitute or replacement for professional psychological or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have concerns about you or a family member's well-being, please contact a licensed mental health professional or physician.