At its most distilled, disappointment is just noticing a negative difference between what we expected and what actually happened. It’s a moment for recalibrating our expectations and learning from an experience.
Of course, we throw a lot of other feelings and experiences into the mix along with that gap, and that’s especially true when expectation and reality involves our kids.
In this episode, we theorize about the purpose of disappointment, how it gets twisted up with how we were parented, and how that in turn affects how we raise our kids. We talk about shame versus disappointment, the paradox of controlling what you can while knowing you have very little control, and how to acknowledge our disappointment while maintaining an open attitude with our kids.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
- How disappointment often brings up shame, helplessness, anger, and anxiety directed at yourself and your kid
- The often tricky relationship between performance and the right to be loved
- How healthy disappointment recognizes the varied factors at play and releases excessive illusions of control over a situation
- Psychoanalytic and evolutionary perspectives on why we feel disappointment
- How parents can approach disappointment with more curiosity and less projection
Learn more about Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:
Learn more about Rob Galligan, PhD.:
Resources:
What is I Hate You. What's For Dinner? ?
On I Hate You. What's For Dinner? we explore whether childhood explains everything. We'll ask our biggest questions about love and hate, rage and fear, and the awesome and mundane that all get smushed together when we're growing up.
Tune in to make better sense of childhood, parenthood, and life in general.