Why kids need to struggle

Experience all of life

Parents often tell me they want their child to be more confident, resilient, and motivated.

What many don’t realize is that those qualities aren’t simply taught. They’re forged. Like clay in a kiln, character develops under the heat of real world experience.

We naturally want to protect our children from disappointment, failure, anxiety, embarrassment, and loss. That’s what loving parents do. We see our child’s pain and want to make it go away. But when we remove every source of discomfort, we may also remove some of the very experiences that build emotional strength.

Everyone’s pathway to contentment and wellness has to be natural, dog-eared, hard-fought, and real. Growth comes from lived experience. It can’t come from an app, a book, or parental paving. It’s got to be an inside job.

It comes from what I call being in the kiln — where your triumphs and your tragedies are melded together and strengthened by fire.

Otherwise, it doesn’t last. And it isn’t real.

What do I mean by “the kiln”?

It’s been said a million times because it’s true: the great ones get back up. They respond with courage and resilience when adversity strikes. They embrace life.

They can do that because they experience allof life — the good and the bad — and don’t automatically shy away from the difficult parts.

They take the heat. They embrace the process with all its ups AND downs.

Loss, defeat, illness, disappointment, embarrassment, uncertainty, and adversity can all be part of the kiln. They can harden us, but they can also soften us. They teach us what we are capable of. They teach us how to recover. They teach us how to solve problems, tolerate frustration, ask for help, try again, and keep going when things don’t go our way.

The goal isn’t to become hard, nor exclusively successful. The goal is to become strong enough to stay soft so one can thrive with the good and tolerate and learn from the bad.

We want our children to become adults who can be both loving and compassionate as well as tough and demanding when needed. People who can be empathic, patient, courageous, funny, generous, and kind — but who can also face a problem when one shows up.

We want them to be able to handle the heat of life without crumbling when they get banged around a bit.

Just like a piece of pottery that has been properly fired, they need to be able to hold whatever life pours into them — no matter how hot, bitter, briny, or spicy it is.

To become that person, they have to do increasing amounts of work themselves as they mature.

You need to help them do the work, not do it for them.

They need to get into the kiln.

When parents rescue instead of prepare

Today’s young people can often avoid discomfort almost indefinitely. When life becomes difficult, there is always somewhere else to go: phones, video games, streaming, social media, endless entertainment. And parents, understandably wanting to help, can make it even easier.

• We call the coach.
• We solve the problem.
• We negotiate the consequence.
• We make the phone call.
• We explain the situation to the teacher.
• We fill out the application.
• We make excuses.
• We fight their fights.

None of this comes from a bad place. Usually, it comes from love. But there is an important question every parent should ask:

I was just talking with a college coach who told me a story that illustrates the difference. The father of one of their players felt his child wasn’t getting enough playing time. Instead of encouraging the student to talk directly with the coach, the father made up a story criticizing the coach and sent it not only to the coach, but copied the athletic director and president of the college. Thankfully, the A.D. and president took the time to find out what had actually happened, and they backed the coach.

The student got no more playing time. And, more importantly, the student learned nothing from the experience.

Imagine, however, if the father had taken a different approach. He could have said, “I understand that you’re frustrated. Why don’t you talk to your coach and find out what you need to do to get more playing time?” That conversation might have been uncomfortable; the student might have heard some hard truths. But the student also might have learned exactly what it would take to earn more playing time. And then something critically important could have happened:

The student could have discovered what was within their control.

Maybe they could work harder. Improve a particular skill. Change their attitude. Become more reliable. Or maybe they could decide that the situation wasn’t right for them and make a different choice. Either way, they would have gained something their father couldn’t give them:

Agency.

That is what the kiln does. It turns “Someone needs to fix this for me” into “What can I do about this?”

The kiln teaches skills, not just toughness

Of course I am not advocating that you throw your child into the kiln and shut the door behind them. That’s not parenting. Children need support, guidance, boundaries, and skills. They need to know that someone is there for them. But, as I’ve said, being there for them doesn’t mean doing everything for them.

The critical questions:

• Can your child tolerate disappointment?
• Can they handle being told no?
• Can they recover from a mistake?
• Can they have an uncomfortable conversation?
• Can they ask for help?
• Can they solve a problem instead of asking someone else to solve it?
• Can they do something they’re not good at yet?
• Can they tolerate uncertainty?
• Can they take responsibility when they have made a mistake?
• Can they recognize what is — and isn’t — in their control?

These are not abstract character traits.

They are skills.

And skills are learned through practice.

Confidence is earned

This is why I don’t think we can simply “build” a child’s confidence by telling them how wonderful they are. Praise feels good. Encouragement matters. A child needs to know they are loved regardless of what they accomplish. But confidence is something different.

Confidence comes from experience.

• You face something difficult.
• You try.
• You struggle.
• You make mistakes.
• You learn.
• You try again.

And eventually you discover:

I can do this.

That’s confidence.

Not given. Not praised into existence.

Built.

And that is why rescuing a child from every difficult experience can have an unintended consequence. We may make their childhood more comfortable while quietly teaching them that they can’t handle discomfort and we don’t trust them to solve their own problems.

The answer isn’t to make life harder for children. The answer is to stop making it easier than it needs to be.

The cure is in the kiln

In order to find the cure — pun intended — you have to understand that difficulty is part of the curriculum. Be a grown-up. Know it. Accept it.

More importantly, show the children in your life how it’s done. Model what it looks like to be in the kiln; accept the whole catastrophe, as they say. Don’t shy away from difficulty. Face it. Give it your best shot. Get back up when your best isn’t good enough.

Let your character — not your failures and not even your accomplishments — define you.

And when your child is struggling, ask yourself:

Where am I rescuing my child from the very experiences that could help them grow?

Then ask a second question:

What would it look like to walk beside them instead?

That’s the difference. Walking beside them doesn’t mean abandoning them. It means letting them experience disappointment, frustration, effort, uncertainty, and recovery for themselves, while knowing that you are there. That’s how they learn that they can handle life — and that you trust them to do that.

Chase the dream

I’m reading Bobby Orr’s autobiography. He talks about playing pond hockey with his friends for countless hours as a kid — feeling free, chasing the puck, and chasing his dreams.

Bobby Orr was also a small, frail child, but that didn’t stop him. If anything, those early experiences helped make him strong. He was doing the work without knowing he was doing it. Bobby Orr was in the kiln.

That’s what I want for every child. Not a life without disappointment. Not a life without failure. Not a life without pain. A life in which they learn, gradually and safely, that they can face those things, learn from them, and keep going. Because the goal isn’t to keep our children out of the heat. The goal is to help them become strong enough to handle it.

Clay doesn’t become pottery until it enters the kiln, and neither do we.

So ask yourself:

Is my child experiencing enough of life to discover what they’re capable of?

• Are they struggling with something that matters to them?
• Are they solving problems?
• Are they recovering from disappointment?
• Are they taking some risks?
• Are they chasing something they care about?

Because dreams aren’t reached by avoiding the kiln.

They’re reached by going through it.