Helping kids and teens handle rejection

Featured expert

Karina Martinez, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

Karina Martinez is a therapist who works with children, adolescents, and families in our Project Health program. Karina teaches her patients strategies to help provide communication between the family and the tools necessary to reduce emotional stress. Karina works with patients to understand their feelings with acceptance and compassion in order to increase their quality of life.

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Transcription

Melanie Cole, MS (Host): Welcome to Long Live Childhood, a pediatric health and wellness podcast presented by Rady Children’s. I’m Melanie Cole. Today, we’re talking about helping kids and teens handle rejection, how to talk to them about it and when they might need extra support and practical tips to help your child build resilience.

Joining me is Karina Martinez. She’s a licensed marriage and family therapist at the Project Health Program at Children’s Health of Orange County. Karina, thank you so much for being with us today. Tell us a little bit about the word rejection. What are the different forms of rejection that a child can experience? Because typically we think of it in relationships and that sort of thing. Kind of give us a working definition of what we’re really talking about here today.

Karina Martinez: Hi, Melanie. Of course. One of the first things we think about when we think about rejection is peer rejection. Peer rejection in our relationships is one of the most common forms of rejection. But within that, there’s some emotional rejection that some children feel. It can also be difficult to talk about with our kids and teens. Rejection in relationships with peers or significant others can be especially challenging. These experiences often become harder to cope with as we get older. We can teach kids early to see rejection as a normal part of life. We can help them view it as a healthy part of development. This gives them healthier ways to respond as they grow older.

Melanie Cole, MS: One of the things we always like to discuss, Karina, for parents, you know, when we’re talking stress, mental health issues, anxiety disorders, all the different things that children are going through right now, we’re always looking for those red flags, those signs. When it’s rejection, I mean, are they going to tell us if they’ve been spurned by someone they have a crush on, or God forbid, it’s a parent rejection or a relative? How do we know that they are feeling these things?

Karina Martinez: Some of our kids that we definitely see here at CHOC do have the ability to like communicate and let us know. But I think one of the signs is being able to see kind of their changes in mood, is definitely one where, you know, if they’re normally very outgoing, very talkative, but then you see them kind of take a step back. They seem a little unsure, second-guessing themselves in interactions with you or with family members.

Another one is kind of withdrawing. So, withdrawing is when they’re isolating more than usual. You know, a little bit is normal, especially with children and teens, when they go to their room. They kind of separate themselves. But for the most part, if that’s out of their character, outside of what is the norm, then that’s definitely a red flag I would keep in mind. And maybe just some of that anxiety. If you see a lot of anxiety in their interactions in the community, that would also be a red flag for me.

Melanie Cole, MS: When we think about talking to our children about anything that they’re going through, communication is really the key. And I have a 22-year-old and a 25-year-old, so I’ve been through that before when they’re teens, of course. And keeping those lines of communications open is key. But when we’re talking about something like rejection, feeling rejected, feeling dejected, like let down, how do we speak to them about that? What is it we are supposed to say to kind of start that conversation?

Karina Martinez: Yeah. It’s a really hard position because I think, especially as parents, you want to kind of save your children or your teens from that feeling of rejection, because either they’re feeling really sad about it, they’re feeling upset. That first response is to want to take care of them and protect them.

There are forms of doing that in a very healthy way and to really help them build that resilience moving forward. And so, one of the first things I would do is, for sure, validate their emotions, provide some reflections that are non-judgmental. And an example of that would be being maybe something along the lines of, “I bet that really hurt your feelings. I’m sorry that happened to you. I can see this really upset you” or “I could see that in friendship or relationship was important to you,” versus something that can be a little bit more in terms of interpreting or more judgmental of, “It sounds like they weren’t really your friend,” or “It sounds like you shouldn’t be very upset about this.”

So, one of them is just trying to narrate and provide more non-judgmental reflections about their feelings. And this is really important, because I think as they get older you want to avoid a lot of that, like black and white thinking that happens as we get older. And if, as a child, you’re learning that there’s some gray areas and it doesn’t have to be bad or good. It could be how can you use this as a learning experience? So, validating would be one.

Another one is building some empathy and self-compassion towards themselves and others. So, that self-compassion, you could definitely provide by giving them a safe space to encourage them to keep trying. That a lot of their character is not based on their achievements, but more on their values.

And the other part is the empathy in terms of discussing the context of how things happened in that moment. Understanding what factors played into the projection and giving them an opportunity to see what was going on in the other person’s mind to build that empathy for others as well. So, those are maybe just a few of those topics I would probably focus on when speaking to children and teens about rejection.

Melanie Cole, MS: Those are excellent tips, really great pieces of advice. Now, as we’re teaching them empathy and compassion and self-love besides, I’m so glad that you mentioned that because we do negative self-talk ourselves, really a lot, especially women, how do we help them cope with that? Because we can teach them all of those things, but it still hurts.

Karina Martinez: Right. And I think that’s normal. I think validating that it hurts and you want to build that ability to navigate those very distressing emotions, right? And so, it’s going to hurt and I think validating that.

And then, on top of that, you touched on it already, that self-talk. I think the biggest ways that we can help children and kids is through modeling how that self-talk can look like, like changing even just how you approach that conversation of, “It sounds like in this situation, this person didn’t want to continue a relationship or didn’t want to have a friendship,” versus generalizing that “This automatically makes me a bad person or a bad friend, and reducing that labeling.” Instead, encouraging those positive affirmations of, “You know what? This situation didn’t work out, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a kind person. And I have other qualities about myself that other people do find enjoyable.”

As you teach them to practice this self-talk, that really builds their own self-compassion and also their ability to navigate those distressing emotions. It makes doing those coping skills that are really important, such as mindfulness. A lot of mindfulness is based on nonjudgments and being in the moment and accepting what is. And so, it would make it easier for them to also start practicing those mindfulness skills.

Melanie Cole, MS: Well, I agree with you. And as much as it hurts, really reinforcing for our children that they have value and that they are worthy and explaining to them how they tell themselves those things. “That I am worthy and even though this person doesn’t like me as much as I like them or doesn’t want to be friends with me, or I got rejected from this club I wanted to join,” whatever it is, the feeling that you’re worthy enough that they can go on, and there’s other groups and other people that will find them engaging and delightful is so important the way that you’ve said that.

What are some signs as we’re trying to build resilience, really, because that’s what this is. A little bit of a thick skin, a little bit of a toughness, just a little bit of that thick skin so that that stuff doesn’t tear as much, it doesn’t hurt as much.

What signs show a child may need more support? When might they need help from a professional like you? This is especially important if rejection affects self-esteem. It also matters if they are feeling a loss of self-worth.

Karina Martinez: Yeah. And that’s the part where it becomes a little bit more tricky, right? You’re going to be able to implement some of these strategies with your children. But I think there’s certain red flags that I would take in consideration when thinking that maybe they need more support and that’s when they should seek out a professional.

I know I said significant changes in mood is one where you can kind of tell when there’s some rejection that might’ve happened, but these mood changes would become impactful in their day to day. And so, the things that they used to do, you may start seeing that they’re not doing anymore. Things that they used to enjoy and they used to like going out and they’re not doing that anymore. Their mood, for the most part, is either very irritable. So, irritable would be getting angry very quickly, becoming very tearful very fast. Things that wouldn’t normally bother them are now bothering them.

Another big impact that we see with children and teens is when it starts to affect their academics. That’s usually a big red flag because that’s one that is more noticeable when their grades start to fail. Especially if they were achieving at a certain grade level, right? And so, they normally were B student and, all of a sudden, their grades significantly dropped to like Fs. And so, that’s something I would keep an eye on.

I think one of the other things is if you start seeing more excessive worry, panic attacks, maybe they’re more closed off to communicating, whereas before, they may have been more open to communicate. And obviously, some other very high risk red flags would be like any thoughts of suicidal ideation or self-harm. Those ones we would see more in teens. Another one that I do want to highlight that may not be as common, but if there’s some peer rejection in terms of body image, I would also keep an eye out for their eating patterns and if you’re starting to see significant changes in their appetite and their food intake.

Melanie Cole, MS: Those are really great bits of information for us, Karina. I’d like you to give us your best advice as we wrap up, what you tell patients and their parents every single day. Rejection happens. I mean, it happens to all of us at some point in our lives. Nobody is kind of foolproof on that. There’s always going to be somebody who doesn’t like you or doesn’t think that you’re worthy of their attention, and that’s just going to happen at all aspects. Whether it’s as we grow into adults for jobs that we want or, you know, applications that we fill out, it’s just always going to happen. So, we have to learn to deal with it, and that resilience is the key. So, give us your best advice here for parents in helping their kids navigate that as they grow.

Karina Martinez: If I had to give quick advice, it would be this. See these situations as experiences to learn from. They allow you to learn more about yourself. You can notice areas that are harder for you to accept. You can also see areas where you may need more accountability. Identify parts of your self-esteem to work on. Then you can think about how to improve those areas.

Being able to practice, “Hey, I am enough.” And those are the deeper negative self-talk that we tend to have is that, “I’m not enough, I’m not worthy” and really changing those to, “You know what? I am worthy and I am enough and these are the evidence for that. These are the situations. These are those exception moments where I was able to feel worthy and enough. And this one situation doesn’t define who I am and my values.”

Melanie Cole, MS: Such great advice you’ve given us so much to think about here today. Karina, thank you so much for joining us and for the advice you’ve given parents today. It is so important for us to hear. And for more mental health tips and resources, please visit choc.org/programservices/mentalhealth, and you can get so much great information there.

Thank you so much for listening to Long Live Childhood, a pediatric health and wellness podcast presented by Children’s Health of Orange County. Together, we can keep our kids happy and healthy. We’d like to invite our audience to download, subscribe, rate and review Long Live childhood on Apple Podcast, iHeart, Spotify, and Pandora. And please remember to share this on your social channels as we’re really all learning from the experts at CHOC together. I’m Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for joining us today.

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