This week I have done a reasonable job of helping my kids face what feels like, in their world, a disaster. It may seem like an odd thing for a parent to identify as a parenting success, but it is a critical skill for us to help our offspring develop. The thing is that a lot of the time when we think we are helping our kids through difficulty, we are actually solving it for them. Whether it is a little kid who has had their toy stolen by another toddler, a middle school kid who is being picked on (not bullied), or a high school student who is not prepared for their school asignment . 
This week my situation involved the latter. My son realized at bedtime that he was dramatically unprepared for the next day. An assignment he forgot he had, a test that he knew he had but thought it was on another day, and pre-class preparation that he did not feel confident in. He had insisted he was ready for the day, and then made the mistake perhaps of looking at his calendar right before bed only to learn the reality of the situation. Then, he panicked.
First of all, this is not a teachable moment. This is not the time to talk about checking calendars earlier or being responsible, or any other parenting tangent that one may be tempted to go on. It is also not a moment to bail him out. Of course, I want to see him be successful, and I want him to do well in school and feel confident. I could have sat up with him and ‘helped him’. It would realistically have translated to me doing a lot of the work because I could see he was exhausted, it was late, and his brain was cooked. I could have schemed with him to keep him home the next day or send in a note to the teachers. These things would have calmed him down and fixed his problem. It also would have removed the consequence of not checking the calendar, taught him to get out of things, and robbed him of the opportunity to practice managing disappointment.
I had to support him and stay calm. I had to actually remind myself that his entire life does not ride on this day. And I had to reassure him that even though tomorrow was going to be hard, and that he might not do his best on the exam, he would be OK. Sometimes, I told him, your best on a given day is not the best you can do and that is OK.
Slowly and painfully we need to shift our perspective as parents. Our job is not to stop our kids from facing difficulty. It is to sit with our kids and help them endure it. In doing this we show them that life is full of ups and downs, they are capable, and they are not alone.
~C.D