Many of us have experienced the fear of rejection at some point in our lives. We may have feared rejection when applying for a job, asking someone out on a date, or entering into a new group. These experiences represent a normal anxiety around potential situational rejection. Children also face rejection—on the playground, in the classroom, even perceived rejection in the home. If they learn to expect rejection, it can have a long-term impact on their emotional and social health. In fact, a study involving 350 fourth and fifth graders found that actively expecting rejection led to feelings of anger and possible hostility. Those fourth and fifth graders who actively expected rejection were less likely to conform academically or socially. In other words, they were more likely to do poorly in academic settings and experience behavioral difficulties in social settings. After all, why would a person conform to a group or activity in which they expect to experience rejection?

With this in mind, we want our children to develop a sense of acceptance, not rejection. We want our children to have a healthy expectation of acceptance. How can we nurture a healthy expectation of acceptance in our children?

• First, and perhaps most obvious, accept your children. Make sure your children feel accepted in the home by you, their parents. Accept their nuanced differences. Accept their strengths, even if they aren’t in areas you had dreamed of. Don’t confuse inappropriate behavior with immature behavior. Discipline inappropriate behavior but accept immature behavior (after all, they are children). In both instances, teach. Accept mistakes as mistakes, not an affront to your parenting. When you accept your children, they come to see themselves as acceptable.
• Validate your children’s emotions. When you validate your children’s emotions, they feel understood. As you label their emotions, you help them build an emotional vocabulary and realize that all emotions are acceptable. This vocabulary will also help them manage their emotions as they mature. Knowing that you, their parents, accept their emotions and are not overwhelmed by their emotions, helps them develop a sense of acceptance no matter how they feel.
• Teach your children how to manage their emotions as well. Don’t simply stop after accepting and labeling emotions. Take the next step. After your children realize you have accepted their emotion as valid and realistic, help them learn how to manage their emotion in a responsible manner. This begins with being able to accept their emotion as valid and then moves toward self-soothing when necessary. After your child has calmed, help them problem solve ways to respond to the situation that gave rise to the emotion.
• Celebrate effort, not just achievement. Achievement is not the goal. Focusing on achievement increases the risk of rejection when “I didn’t achieve” up to expectation. But effort ultimately leads to achievement and effort is part of every endeavor. Celebrate effort. Doing so will help your child feel accepted even when their achievement falls short of the achievement hoped for.
• Teach that mistakes, setbacks, or failures are merely a learning opportunity. They are not reasons to expect rejection. They are opportunities to grow and learn and “keep moving forward.”
• Encourage healthy relationships with others. Allow your children to become involved in areas where they can develop healthy, accepting relationships. Such activities might include community sports, music or drama, religious community, or volunteer opportunities. Sure, they may experience rejection from individuals in these settings, but they also present the opportunity to develop many accepting relationships. If a rejecting relationship arises, you can serve as your child’s friendship coach in navigating those troubling relationships.