Handling emotional upsets in children.

For divorced parents.

As long as the other parent is making promises to your children that he doesn't keep, you will be angry with him. The key here is to help your children deal with this in a healthy way. Getting mad at him won't help, but helping your children to understand what it means to keep promises and not keep promises, will. Let me see if I can make this clearer.

Lets say that he promises to take them to the park and doesn't show up. Your kids are disappointed and upset. Teach them that when someone makes promises and doesn't keep them, it is okay to be upset. Do not put dad down for not keeping his promise just teach them that it is ok to be upset and the best way to deal with this upset is to talk about it and then find something else to do that is just as fun. This is a delicate balance.

I forget where I found this but it makes sense here. "Our job as loving parents is not to prevent our children from experiencing pain and frustration. We couldn't do it anyway, but even if we could, it would not be desirable. Our real task is to help our children gradually build upa tolerance for sadness, anger, and other uncomfortable feelings. It is the mastery over these emotions, not the absence of them that enables children to feel good about themselves."