How to help my daughter through this disappointment and build resilience?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your daughter sounds like a spoiled brat. Sorry.

She really isn't spoiled, she just loves performing and has wrapped a lot of her identity around being a performer. She's generally a kind, hardworking kid so this personality change is concerning to me!

Yes, this is why it's so hard -- it's a rupture to her sense of self. (Resilience, of course, comes by not tying one's sense of self to external things -- and certainly not to a single-outcome externality, but it's easy to have that perspective when you're an adult...harder when you're a kid and still developing your sense of self).

This thing she's experiencing is how one develops that resilience. It's just hard when you're inside of it.

Just acknowledge that it's hard. Be available to talk it through, don't push too hard. She'll get there.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't focus so much on her deep disappointment, I would call out her behavior toward her so called friend. She's going bail on her friend's sweet 16 why? To send a message? Is she really so willing to dump a friend who tried out and got what your daughter wanted? Is your daughter capable of being a friend? She's in for a lonely, superficial life if she can't be appropriately happy for and supportive of her friends. Is she prone to selfishness? And yeah, if she really wants to be a performer, please don't sugarcoat it. Tell your daughter directly that rejection is part of the deal and if that's really something she wants to do she needs to learn that.

[Anonymous]

I have a theater kid. Meeting actual working actors who talk honestly about how hard it is (and how real) to audition over and over and not get a call back was helpful for my kid, although he’s always been more realistic. If she’s passionate about theater she has to accept that whatever chance she has is something to appreciate and she needs a thick skin. I’ve found the theater community to be pretty healthy in general, but it involves a lot of NO.

[Anonymous]

Is the summer program Interlochen?

[Anonymous]

Your daughter is a jealous mean girl

[Anonymous]

She sounds very entitled. This is life. She is far too old to act like this. I don't think she should be in hobbies where she can't lose. Maybe do art or a team sport where everyone wins or loses.
Let her be. Tell her to pull up her bootstraps and move on.