In the course of working with families, I’ve told parents that they might want to push their kids a bit harder. Sometimes there’s some “learned helplessness” happening, where the child is able to do a task but the adult continues to help them through it at a level that they don’t need to. Sometimes we need to up the ante a bit so that a child can show us what they know. This happens, but it’s not the most common scenario, especially when I first start working with families.

Mostly I ask parents to ease up and dramatically reduce demands on their child.

I ask them to stop expecting their kids to answer questions. I ask them to stop expecting their child to make it through the evening routine without help. I ask them to stop requesting that their child greet others. I ask them to make things easier for their child, rather than harder. 

And that’s when I get strange looks and the question of “won’t I be spoiling them if I don’t ask them to do things for themselves?” and, “how will they learn anything if life is so easy?”

(The answers to those questions is: “no” and “trust me, they will”.)

It is 100% true that the best way to learn something is to actively pursue it, do it, crack its code, and really digest it. We have to learn by doing. By experiencing.

But, it’s also 100% true that if a task feels too complicated and too demanding, we might feel like we’ll never be able to go through the steps to learning it.

Kids with developmental quirks often struggle more with basic tasks than other kiddos, and this is what makes this whole “push them or not” question feel really complicated sometimes.

Should we push kids through or stop pushing?

Should we make tasks harder or easier?

Should we let it be easy or let our kids struggle?

The idea I always try to keep top of mind is the notion of a “just-right challenge”. That’s the sweet spot between apathy - in which “I don’t want to learn at all because I don’t see why I should” - and frustration - in which “what I’m trying to learn is just too damn hard, and I don’t care what you say, I’m not doing it!”

In children experiencing developmental delays and other quirks of development, their bandwidth for a “just-right challenge” is usually smaller than other kids. They are quick to frustration. Quick to reactivity. Quick to melt down.

One of the reasons that kids with developmental delays are reactive has to do with temperament. Some kids are naturally wired to be more reactive than others, and there is some good research to suggest that temperament (i.e., the natural way you respond to situations) is pretty stable across the lifespan. (In my experience, kids with speech and language delays tend to have these reactive-type temperaments in greater numbers than kids without - but that’s based on me looking around and not hard science.) 

But, another -- more important -- reason that kids might have a narrower bandwidth for their “just-right challenge” is experience with failure.

Even at really young ages, kids with developmental delays have already had enough experiences with failure to make them wary of trying anything new. They’re not stupid: they know failure when they meet it, and they’re not in a hurry to meet it again any time soon.

Which might make them resist any and all challenges. Which might make them say a Big Fat NO to everything we ask them to do.

Even things that they need to do. Even things that are good for them in the long run.

Especially those.

And this is where reducing demands might be key. 

Because reducing demands will mean reducing failure. 

And reducing failure will mean reducing meltdowns. 

And reducing meltdowns will mean that a child stays in a zone of learning and curiosity longer.

Which means that they’ll be more ready for a “just-right challenge” later.

Maybe not right now.  But soon.

The place between apathy and frustration is a sweet spot where learning happens. But it can be hard to find. The “just-right challenge” can be tricky. And it can change day to day (sometimes minute to minute) in many kids. The key is knowing when to let it be easy and when to watch your child struggle a bit in that just-right zone.

Finding kids’ “just right challenges” is what the therapists and coaches at SpeechKids are trained to do. If you’re struggling with this right now, reach out for help. We’re here!