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When the phone finally rang, it wasn’t the news we’d been expecting. My 10-year-old daughter Ryan was crushed upon learning she’d been cut from our town’s travel basketball team. Later, when her best friend Sarah called to tell her she’d been selected for the team (along with several of Ryan’s other close pals) my normally thick-skinned 5th grader really fell apart then.
Counseling my daughter posed a dilemma for me. Practically speaking, rejection is part of life and learning to deal with it at a young age is likely good training. But the mommy side of me wanted to make the hurt feel better.
Since this seemed a lot more complicated than kissing a boo-boo, I called on a few experts. Here’s some of their good advice: Shari Kuchenbecker, Ph.D, and author of Raising Winners: A Parent’s Guide to Helping Kids Succeed on and Off the Playing Field (Times Books, 2000) explained that group identity is important to the notoriously self-conscious middle schooler. “Being part of a team fills that need and garners confidence, too,” Kuchenbecker said. “But tweens are a sensitive bunch.”
Preoccupied with the work of fitting in—rejection can be especially upsetting. I could see Ryan’s self esteem starting to plummet and it broke my heart. Sharing my own stories of survival and pointing out Ryan’s other strengths, helped but I didn’t get a smile until I told her superstar Michael Jordan’s true story—that he was cut from his high school basketball team!
Another expert, Michelle Borba, Ed.D. urged me to explain that one person (or coach’s) decision doesn’t mean Ryan still can’t enjoy the game and play it elsewhere. To help children understand the concept of team building, Borba uses the metaphor of a salad: “A coach needs the right mix. You can’t have all tomatoes (forwards) on your team. You need a few carrots and cucumbers, too,” Borba says. “The coach may have been searching for something Ryan simply didn’t show that day.”
Brainstorming other ways to get your child involved can also be helpful. Perhaps he can be the team’s manager or a member of the stage crew if he doesn’t get a part in the school play. Other types of rejection can be painful as well.
For kids 9 and up though, it’s usually more about being left out than missing the actual event. “It’s not the party Samantha won’t be attending that’s upsetting her,” says Borba, the mother of three grown children. “It’s the fact that Sam’s friends are going and she isn’t.”
To save face and regain her footing among her peers, the author of 12 Simple Secrets Real Moms Know (Jossey-Bass 2006) recommends the confident comeback. “When the topic comes up at school—and it will--coach your child to respond with eye contact and humor,” Borba explains.
Teach her to look at the color of the other child’s eye when speaking. “Saying something clever like: ‘Yeah, I got 100 invitations for the same day--it was tough for me to decide which party to attend’ will usually do the job.”
Bouncing back after rejection isn’t easy but all kids eventually learn that disappointment is part of everyone’s life. Plus, many dashed dreams lead to unexpected opportunities like new friendships and self discovery. My own real savvy mom used to say, “All bad experiences have a little good in them.”
Ann Matturro Gault
Real Savvy Moms, education writer (www.realsavvymoms.com)
