Building frustration tolerance

I wrote this “listicle” for my students’ parents. Many of them have found that their children and teens, who have had limited experience with any sort of homework, struggle to tolerate the discomfort of frustration. When faced with a difficult problem, their kids simply could not cope or persevere. These well-meaning parents would often intervene, trying to re-learn concepts and skills they themselves hadn’t considered since their own K-12 days so that they could help their teary or furious or despondent kids. This effort often backfired, creating more frustration for everyone and stoking the flames of insecurity already raging within these struggling kids. There’s a better way. I hope that these ideas are supportive for parents, teachers, tutors, and students alike:

Have your child gather their tools. Before they begin to engage with any challenge, your child needs to gather their tools. Some tools are physical objects, sure—pencils, paper, a ruler, a textbook, etc. But equally important are abstract/intellectual tools. Your child has a deep well of knowledge, but when they are emotionally dysregulated, they may have trouble retrieving that knowledge, or even remembering that they have it. So, before they begin in earnest, have your child recall (and maybe write down) the tools they have to solve the problem(s) before them. A young reader might review phonics rules; a middle-school math student might write down the relevant geometric formulas they know.

Hopefully your child has some emotional-regulation tools in their proverbial toolbox, too. They might remind themselves that deep breathing, fidgeting, diagonal stretching, and/or other “tools” can support their efforts when they feel stressed.

On Hammers and Feather Dusters:

Some tools in our toolboxes are like hammers: blunt, utilitarian, dependable but boring. For your child, these tools might be things like a timer, a daily multivitamin, a routine, sharpened pencils, personal hygiene, their math textbook, a glass of water, graph paper. Hammers are structural and essential.

Other tools are like feather dusters: soft, often in pretty colors, sort of whimsical, and not strictly necessary but nice to have. For your child, these tools could be things like gel pens, scented candles, a favorite snack reserved only for homework time, music, highlighters, a cup of tea, a cozy blanket. Feather dusters make boring or challenging tasks that much more bearable.

“Your child has a deep well of knowledge, but when they are emotionally dysregulated, they may have trouble retrieving that knowledge, or even remembering that they have it.”

Remember the division of responsibility. The student is responsible for completing their schoolwork and learning the material/skills. The parents are responsible for encouraging the student and supporting them. This support should look different based on the specific child, their age, their needs, and the resources available. But, if your child has reliable access to high-quality educators, you, the parent, should rarely (if ever) be teaching them academic material so that they can complete their homework or otherwise be successful at school. You do not need to relearn long division because your fourth grader has long-division homework. You do not need to watch YouTube videos on parts of speech because your middle schooler has a grammar test coming up. If your child is confused, they can look up a YouTube video—and/or they can reach out to a classmate, their teacher, or their tutor for extra support.

When parents take responsibility for their child's learning, not only are they adding stress to themselves and their relationship with their child, but they are also encroaching on their child’s development as an autonomous, self-directed learner.

What you can do to help your child:

Help them establish a routine, and hold them accountable.

Body-double with them.

Provide a safe, comfortable space that lends itself to productivity (think: dining table with a snack plate and headphones, not living-room sofa with popcorn and the t.v. turned on).

Remove distractions like cell phones.

Help them emotionally regulate.

Be highly protective of their sleep.

“When parents take responsibility for their child’s learning, they are encroaching on their child’s development as an autonomous, self-directed learner.”

Reward effort, not results. Never reward your child for high grades or punish them for low grades. Instead, express how proud you are when they tackle a challenge, even if it means a lower mark. Remind them that you are proud of them for trying their best, being persistent, and being curious. Discuss this framework with them regularly and not just when they are bringing you a low grade or a piece of homework that has them stumped. Talk about it in the car, at the table, while walking to the grocery store. They need to believe you when you say that the process is the point. If you only give them one-liners when they are feeling low or ashamed, they will assume that you are offering them platitudes.

Set a timer. The length should depend upon your child’s age and specific needs. Collaborate with your child to determine how many minutes seems both comforting and appropriately challenging. Below are general recommendations, but know that you and your child may appropriately choose a number outside of my recommended range, which is totally okay. Everyone is different (and every situation is different—your child might need a shorter time on one day or for a particular task than they would on a different day or while working on a different task).

Grades 1–2: 5–15 minutes

Grades 3–4: 10–20 minutes

Grades 5–6: 15–30 minutes

Grades 7–8: 25–35 minutes

Grades 9–12: 30–60 minutes

While the timer is running, your child is to try their best to complete the task at hand. When the timer goes off, it is time for a break. Maybe it’s a short break of just a few minutes before resetting the timer and going again (a la the Pomodoro Technique), or maybe it’s time to put down the pencil for the rest of the day. Gauge your child’s resilience and capacity in that moment, as well as the difficulty of the task. Weigh the risks and benefits of pushing your child a little more versus letting them recuperate and try again at a later time, either independently or with assistance from a teacher or friend.

For some people, timers are too arbitrary to feel motivating. If you find that to be true for your child, try some “organic” timers: can your child work until the dishwasher is finished, until the cookies have baked, until Mom gets home from work, until the tea is ready, until it’s time to leave for soccer practice?

Encourage good breaks. I’m not talking about phone-scrolling or video games (though those have their place). I’m talking about breaks that encourage rejuvenation and relaxation. Maybe take a walk with your child, in the sunshine and fresh air. Have them make and savor a snack, or do prep for dinner. Literally shake it out together. Put on a favorite song, and help them complete a mindless chore, like doing the dishes or folding laundry. Ask them to play fetch with the dog or help a younger sibling with a task. Environmental changes, multisensory experiences, mental ease, connection to others, limited in time and scope, enjoyable but not too fun—these are the keys to a good break.

“Environmental changes, multisensory experiences, mental ease, connection to others, limited in time and scope, enjoyable but not too fun—these are the keys to a good break.”

Change the goal. Let’s say your teenager is working to solve an algebraic equation. It involves fractions and exponents and multiple variables, and your child insists that they have never before solved an equation so complex. Encourage them to change the goal; for now, we don’t care so much about finding the solution for the equation as we do about exploring various approaches to solving. How many different ways can they tackle this unwieldy equation? Tell them that, at this stage, we are less concerned with finding a “right” answer; instead, focus on coming up with as many different reasonable, justified answers they can, through various methods.

An example for a younger student: maybe your grade-2 child is answering comprehension questions about a passage they read. They say they are frustrated because they can’t find a particular answer in the text. Encourage them to jot down three possible answers that would make sense based on information in the text. Have them underline or highlight their evidence. Or, ask them to come up with a related question for which they do know the answer, and to write all of that down.

In changing the immediate goal, we empower students to engage with the material more flexibly and more curiously, and with less pressure.

Model it. Let your child see you problem-solve and cope with frustration in real life. When, halfway through preparing a meal, you realize you’re missing a key ingredient, vocalize your frustration, and then discuss various ways to solve the problem—by thinking up a substitute, saving the in-progress meal for the next day and pivoting to pizza for tonight, asking a neighbor for the missing ingredient, etc. Even if you know immediately that you’re going to order DoorDash and finish this home-cooked dinner tomorrow, still discuss other possible solutions with your child. How many solutions—practical and impractical, efficient and silly—can you come up with together?

But don’t wait for life to throw obstacles in your path; seek them out for fun. Play games like Scrabble, Qwirkle, and Double Solitaire. Complete sudoku, crossword, and jigsaw puzzles. Investigate unimportant questions, like, “Does pushing the ‘walk’ button at the College/Spadina crosswalk actually influence the traffic lights?” When the cool trick (or, sigh, app) going around school is the classic “mind-reading” number-guessing game, sit down and reverse engineer it—together, just because you can.

Resist turning to the internet for immediate answers. Change your family culture into one of thinking first, googling second. Delay gratification.

Another key concept to model? Effort over result. If you lose at pickleball, don’t tell your child, “I was awful today. We lost.” Say, “I worked really hard, and we lost. It was a hard match, and I was really frustrated, but I’m still glad I went. I learned a lot of new techniques from the other team. And now I’m going to reward my effort with a bubble bath.”

“Change your family culture into one of thinking first, googling second.”

When your child is frustrated, don’t try to eliminate the frustration or the reason for the frustration. Instead, help them feel and move through it.

If you catch your child in a state of frustration (and it has not progressed into a gnarlier state like extreme angst or despair), silently acknowledge that this is a wonderful opportunity for your child to develop distress tolerance and problem-solving strength. Then, assess: do they need a break? Encouragement? A cookie? Nothing?

What you don’t want to do is to intervene with solutions or strategies—at least not immediately. Start with inquiry: “How are you feeling?” “Do you have any other ideas for how you can move forward?” “Do you want to take a break and let your brain rest for a few minutes, or do you think you can push through?”

If appropriate, remind your child that frustration is a temporary emotion and that they can survive it—but that, if it begins to morph into a more insidious emotion, they might need to take a time out and use their tools to emotionally regulate.

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Maybe you and your child have done all of the above things to help prevent, ease, and prepare for frustration, and still, here you are, with a child or teen who has become self-flagellatory, enraged, despondent, or otherwise upset from frustration. If they have moved into more extreme emotions, set aside the source of frustration, and work to coregulate. We cannot learn when we are severely dysregulated—and even if we could, no piece of schoolwork is worth major distress. The goal is to help your child expand their window of frustration tolerance and to keep them within that widening window. Once they have moved beyond their limits, the only goal is to help them get back to safety. You can do this with compassion, emotional processing, distraction, rest, humor, and more—but, if possible, resist using their dysregulation as an excuse to solve their problem for them. Solving the problem for them sends the message that their dysregulation is a sign that they cannot handle the task at hand, when, in reality, it is just a sign that they have needs that haven’t been met. Leave the problem for another hour or another day, when your child is regulated enough to face the challenge. And then, consider if the problem is actually appropriate for your child to handle on their own. Take into account their age, developmental stage, emotional stability, and strengths and weaknesses. If you doubt your child’s ability to wrestle with (note: not “solve,” not “master,” but “wrestle with”) the task on their own, then consult with their teacher about scaffolding or adjusting the assignment so that it is more appropriate.