Many children’s leaders actually end up discouraging the very children we want to encourage and should be encouraging. Our conversations can set the stage for discouragement by how we approach a subject or by the very words we use. When children are discouraged their fears are stirred up and their sense of failure becomes paramount in their minds.
Kids who are fresh in the divorce experience may already feel a sense of failure. They may think the reason a parent left is because they weren’t good enough and they begin to measure everything they do by this plumb line. Karen Stephens says,
“Kids can become so stressed they freeze, cry, give up, or quit trying all together …”[1]
It is the child’s perception of the situation and a child’s perception is never wrong because it is how they perceive things to be.