I’m looking for some practical advice on how to help kids stick with things when they get frustrated or want to give up. I’ve heard positive reinforcement works better than just telling them to keep trying, but I’m not sure what specific strategies actually work well.
Any parents or teachers here have techniques that have worked for you? I’m dealing with a situation where my kid starts something but loses interest pretty quickly when it gets challenging.
What’s helped with my kids is making the process more fun and social. We started doing challenges together - like who can practice their math facts for 10 minutes or work on a puzzle without getting frustrated. It’s not really a competition, more like we’re both working on something difficult at the same time. I also learned that timing matters a lot. My younger one gets overwhelmed faster in the evening, so we moved challenging activities to right after school when she’s still fresh. And we talk about how even adults struggle with new things - I’ll show them when I’m learning something new and having a hard time too. That seems to help them feel less alone in the struggle.
My child becomes quite upset when puzzles or building blocks don’t go as planned. I try to praise him for his effort, but I sometimes question my approach. Do you emphasize the effort while he’s struggling or after he completes a task? I worry I interrupt him too much when he gets frustrated, but I also don’t want him to simply give up.
My kid used to quit piano lessons the moment a song got tricky. What worked for us was breaking things down into tiny wins. Like celebrating when she could play just four measures smoothly, then eight, and so on. We also started a little chart where she gets to put a sticker after practicing, not for being perfect but just for showing up and trying. The visual progress seems to motivate her more than me just saying “good job.” Now she actually asks to practice sometimes.
With my two kids, I learned that celebrating the struggle itself really helped build their persistence. I’d say things like “I saw you get frustrated with that math problem but you kept working on it for another five minutes - that’s exactly what strong people do.” It sounds simple, but naming that moment when they push through difficulty seemed to click for them.
One thing that surprised me was how much it helped when I shared my own frustrating moments. I’d tell them about messing up a work presentation or struggling to figure out a new recipe. They started seeing that getting stuck doesn’t mean you’re bad at something, it just means you’re learning.
My younger one responds well to having a “frustration plan” we made together. When something gets hard, she takes three deep breaths, tries one more time, then decides if she wants to take a break or ask for help. Having that routine takes the emotion out of it. My older kid prefers when I just acknowledge that what he’s doing is genuinely difficult instead of trying to make it seem easy. 
We found small rewards for effort rather than results helped a lot. Like extra screen time just for practicing guitar, even if it sounded terrible. Also picking activities they actually care about made a huge difference.