How to Help a Child Who Is Dealing With Rejection

Children have very tender hearts and minds. You never know how they comprehend certain situations or how they perceive your actions. Children get affected by things easily and certain behaviors can deeply scar them.

The fact that children can be affected by things more severely, negative feelings like rejection or neglect can mess with their lives and how! Sometimes, the parents or caregivers have a lot of things to take care of and unknowingly make the child feel rejected. That’s unfortunate but every parent needs to realize that the child doesn’t understand worldly things as easily as we do.

Rejection can completely mess with a child’s mental and emotional health. Some parents or caregivers reject their children for some reason and that’s very sad, especially for the child.

Today, we will explore different ways to help a child who is dealing with rejection…

Effects Of Rejection In Childhood

Rejection can make a child feel so many things, some true and some not. Every child deserves to feel loved and wanted. If you have unknowingly made your child, feel rejected, it’s time to make up for it.

I say so because the effect of rejection on children is massive. Rejection can come in any form, it can come from parents, it can come from school (friends and teachers), it can come from society, etc.

Also read: The 4 Styles Of Parenting And Their Impact On Children

The feeling of rejection is really strong, it can break a child emotionally. Feelings of rejection attack a child’s mental health, self-esteem, self-image, self-worth, emotional health, etc. It can also affect a child’s academic growth and personal development.

However, it is our responsibility to make the child feel safe within the place where they are growing. Therefore, when you find a child feeling rejected there are a few things you can do to help the child deal with rejection.

Let’s have a look at them…

How To Help A Child Deal With Rejection?

Dealing with rejection is difficult for adults, imagine how difficult it is going to be for young children. Children are going to need help in dealing with rejection and that’s when you come into the picture. All you need is a little patience, consistent effort, and a few more things to help a child deal with rejection.

Let’s see what you can do to help a child deal with rejection…

1. Help attach your child’s self-worth to their character, not their achievements

This is one of the most important steps in helping a child deal with rejection. You need to make your child understand the importance of the journey rather than the destination. Tell them that their achievements and their failure do not define who they are but their character does. Help build a good character and make them understand that they are much more than the goals they achieve or things they fail at.

Also read: 10 Signs You’re Healing From Childhood Trauma: You Will be Okay

2. Make them understand failure

This might be a tricky one, we as adults sometimes fail to understand failure. Children often take failures to their hearts and that’s what the feelings of rejection and being unwanted feed on. It’s our responsibility to make them realize that failure is a part and parcel of life and that failure doesn’t define them.

3. Make failing a part of the learning process

While you are helping a child deal with rejection, it is going to be a long learning process. Make sure that you don’t indulge in toxic optimism, there is no need for them to look for the silver lining in failure. Instead, help them understand that you will fail sometimes and that’s how you’ll learn what is not working for you. So that next time you don’t make the same mistake. Make failing a part of their learning process.

4. Comfort and validate their experience and make them feel safe

It’s very important to validate their experiences and feelings. When they feel rejected, they can easily reject themselves too. By making them believe that what they are feeling is completely fine and they aren’t the problem, you make them feel normal. It makes them feel safe when their experiences and emotions are accepted and validated.

Also read: Psychological Effects Of Divorce On Children | How to Help Kids Cope With Divorce

5. Take a back seat but let them know you have their back

After being or feeling rejected for so long, children tend to lose trust in the people around them. You need to gain that trust back but try not to dictate them. It’s their life, they need to make their own decisions and mistakes so that they learn. However, you need to make sure when they decide to take that leap of faith, you’re on the other end to catch them just in case they fall.

That’s All Folks!

I hope you found this blog about how to help a child who is dealing with rejection helpful, interesting, and thought-provoking. Do share this blog with your friends and family and help them understand that a child needs a growth-promoting environment in their developing years and it’s our responsibility to give them that.

Thanks for reading.

Take care and stay safe.