by Leah Curtis

Created on: March 23, 2010

As a parent, I always want to fix everything for my daughter. If I had my way, she would never experience any hurt or humiliation, loss or pain, rejection or failure. It is a good thing I do not get my way in this respect because I would be setting my daughter up for a lifetime of inadequacy. Setbacks occur in every stage in a person’s life, beginning with things such as a child not getting the lead in his Grade One class play. It might seem like a small thing, perhaps, but it is large in the mind of a child. However, small children tend to move on rather quickly as the world is full of new experiences for them to explore. This is not the case with teenagers.

Teenagers are in the stage of life where they still have one foot firmly entrenched in dependency and the other foot finding its’ way on the shaky ground of independence. The teen years are the bridge between childhood and adulthood and, as adults, we often forget that teens know how to be children because they have been through that stage. They have yet to reach the adulthood stage. The world revolves around a child. Teenagers are still learning that the world does not revolve around them. Teaching a teenager how to deal with the inevitable setbacks that life brings provides them with a life-long skill on their journey to maturity.

It is difficult as a parent to stand back and watch your child deal with defeat of any kind. However, there are different kinds of setbacks that teens can experience. Setbacks that your teenager can experience and how you can help, will differ according to the situation. For instance, a teen that has his or her heart set on gaining a spot on a sports team and not achieving that goal, experiences disappointment. Sharing your own experiences  and allowing your teen to express his feelings is a good way to help your teen learn that there are many challenges in life and we can, and do, learn to cope and work through them.

Other situations are much harder on teenagers. Losing a loved one to a disease or an accident is a life altering experience. The teenage years are often the first time in a person’s life that they begin to see themselves as a part of the world, not just a person who exists inside his or her own family. Parents can help their teenagers put experiences into perspective by teaching them that there will always be degrees of enormity when it comes to problems. Some things will pass quickly, others will not, but the human spirit is resilient and

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