Helping your child struggle to put a puzzle together, working together on an arts and craft project, helping your child learn how to set the the table, or make his or her bed - these are activities that children need to be taught to do by parents who will use empathy for their child's frustration to assist so that the child experiences mastery and satisfaction and the parent and child can share a sense of pride and satisfaction. Empathic frustration is the sensitive push that you give your child to delay gratification in the service of managing their needs and desires so that they learn the basics of impulse control and sustained effort. Empathic frustration assists your child in building the emotional muscles to withstand the demands that a successful life requires. Helping children learn how to postpone gratification and accept and even enjoy challenges needs to be introduced and fostered by parents from an early age.
You are responsible for creating a family that facilitates the meaningful engagement of each of its members into society. As parents, you will not feel satisfied or successful unless your children can make the transition into school, into meaningful relationships with peers, and into substantive activities in the community. Therefore, as parents your family needs to adopt attitudes and behaviors that will support success in those arenas. Notice that your responsibility as parents is not to gratify your children. Immediate gratification is the equivalent of a sweet dessert - it goes down easy, but it has little nutritional value In fact, appropriate, empathic frustration is essential to healthy psychosocial development. Emotional maturity requires the capacity to manage frustration and postpone gratification. Empathic frustration is the fruit and vegetable dynamic tension that promotes emotional muscular development. Children raised on “ice cream” will always seek the quick, emotional fix of sensation seeking and avoid the work of preparing for life. Gratification of children is relatively easy—empathic frustration requires commitment to your child’s potential. You are your child’s personal trainer—you are the one to decide how heavy a weight they are to lift. How you manage your responsibility will, in large part, influence how your child reacts to the normative frustrations of life outside your home.
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