5 Things to Do When Your Child Says, "This is Too Hard!"

My six-year-old and I were working on a puzzle a few days ago. It was a 300 piece puzzle--much larger than the normal 60-100 piece puzzles he's used to doing, but he insisted on trying this one.

We dumped the pieces out on the coffee table, and I began sorting edge pieces from middle pieces. My son pawed through the pieces searching for two that went together. It didn't take long for him to say, "This is too hard." After another minute, he told me he wanted to go and do something else instead.

Many children (and adults!) avoid tasks that appear to be too hard. Learning to work through things that are "hard" is an invaluable and essential skill. Angela Duckworth defines grit as the ability to persist and persevere when you face obstacles. She found that grit is a key predictor of future success.

Grit doesn't come naturally for many children, but it can be developed.

Here are five things to do when your child says, "This is too hard!" that can help develop grit:

1. Empathize and agree that it is hard. Our tendency is to quickly say something is easy when our children tell us it's too hard. Even though our intention in saying that is to be encouraging, it has the opposite effect. Our children might wonder why they're having such a hard time with something that we think is so easy. There must be something wrong with them. Obviously that's not the conclusion we want them to reach. Instead, empathize and agree with them: "You're right, this puzzle is hard. It has a lot more pieces than the puzzles you normally do."

2. Revise negative self-talk. "This is too hard" is short for "this is too hard for me," which is rooted in a negative view of self and one's abilities. Introduce your children to the power of yet and teach them to say, "I haven't mastered this yet." While "This is too hard" shuts the door, "I haven't mastered this yet" opens the door to the possibility that one day (with effort) I will be able to master it. Here's what I said to my son: "You haven't mastered 300 piece puzzles yet, but with time and practice, you can."

3. Model working through something difficult. Our children need to see us struggle. When something is hard for you, point it out and call attention to what you're doing to overcome the challenge. I told my son, "This puzzle is tricky for me too. Sometimes when things are frustrating, I like to take a little break and then come back to it."

4. Break it down. Tasks that are large (like 300 pieces!) or seem like they will take a while are more likely to be labeled as "too hard." You can help your child overcome this by demonstrating how to break a task down into manageable steps or shorter work periods. For the puzzle, I coached my son on the first step of sorting out the edge pieces from the middle pieces. When he found that too overwhelming, I broke it down even further by giving him a small pile of pieces to sort. Once he was able to sort out his full pile, his confidence grew and he continued sorting from the main pile.

5. Praise effort and perseverance. Don't wait until the hard task is completed to provide positive feedback. Praise your child for the effort she is putting into the task and the strategies she is using. "I like how you're looking at the picture on the puzzle box to help figure out where that corner piece goes. That's a great strategy to use the picture on the box for clues."

Here's a printable you can post as a reminder for what to do the next time your child says, "This is too hard." Click the image below to download a PDF for printing.