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Originally Posted by Nosy  How can I help him not be disappointed if something like this happens again? Of course, we can learn from this particular situation, but he is so sensitive.
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I don't think you can prevent him feeling disappointed, and I'm not sure you'd want to. You wouldn't want to cause it uneccessarily of course, but this is an opportunity to give him some tools for dealing with life's disappointments. Sometimes we can change things, and when we can we do BUT, we wouldn't want to get into the habit of changing reality for our kids.
You can however, validate his feelings and help him work through and adapt to reality. He does sound very sensitive (my DS is as well, but not in this particular category so I'm no expert to be sure). Honestly, I would just validate the things he's telling you. When he's talking about his frustration over the doll house: "You wanted another doll house, but received this one instead. You feel disappointed. I understand." As to the DH/store scenario I'd say, "You thought Dad was going to get you all of the things you picked out. When your birthday came and went and you didn't receive the items, you felt disappointed." And then, "The items you received from your uncle weren't really your thing. You'd rather have received something different. I understand."
Truly, validation is the only way we get through these things. Warning: he may cry harder AFTER you say these things. That's ok. He's doing what he has to do to work through it and move on, deal with the disappointment. I love Naomi Aldort's saying:
"children can deal with any trauma, any upset so long as they are able to express it." You can't change reality for him, but you can help him adapt to it. This is a skill that will serve him very well, I assure you. After he's had time to cry, be upset, see if he doesn't relax and eventually move on... until the next time that is.
Some suggestions for when things are calm, for helping now, and for the future: look for opportunities in your lives to show your DS about disappointment, gratitude, etc. Let him see you receive a gift and be thankful. Let him see you not get the last pretty blue shirt on the rack and witness how YOU deal with disappointment. You can share with him stories about your own life (my DS LOVES and his helped immensely by the most upsetting times of my childhood!
). You can share about times when you wanted one thing and received another and felt disappointed. If you happen to receive a gift in the here and now and it doesn't do much for you, you can be grateful and thankful to the person who gave you the gift, and then later confide to your DS: You know, this cake pan isn't really one I'm going to use, but it was so thoughtful of Auntie to give it to me. I love that she thought about me in this way..."
As to feeling grateful, I've been around the block on this one and the only thing I've come up with is that you can't make it happen per se. It is a product of maturity. You can model gratitude, nurture attachment, validate and wait... you'll see glimpses of beautiful gratitude and at other times total breaches of courtesy (well, I shouldn't assume) but it's all normal. For my DS, we just talk often (and in particular before things like Christmas get togethers with the family and the like) about how nice it is that people think of us. We may not receive everything we'd like, but it's nice to have been thought of. We can show our thanks to them, but we don't have to say everything we think out loud... he can always confide in you later and receive again, validation.
We're also sticklers for writing thank you notes together... and DS always likes to give gifts as well (he draw pictures for people usually). Also, you could play a game about gift giving. Play is a powerful way to deal with disappointment and can often take the sting out of the real moment when it should arise. DS likes to gather things in his room and put it in a box and "wrap it up" and give it to me. I'm always VERY grateful! You could encourage him to give you something you'd LOVE and then something you WOULDN'T and then act accordingly... being grateful for both no matter what they are. KWIM?
I hope this makes sense. My DH and DS are playing very LOUDLY and I'm having a hard time concentrating and keeping this from being wordy.
The best and hang in there, mama!
Em
I think as adults we are just as dissappointed with gifts sometimes, we have just 1. learned how to be polite about it and 2. learned not to count our chickens. I can see how a 4 year old wouldn't have that yet.
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