We all want to comfort our children after they suffer any kind of failure or disappointment. It's only natural. But the best parents I've met have resisted the urge to "make it all better."

Instead, they ask a simple question: "What happened?"

The question is asked kindly and respectfully, but the intention is clear: to help the child understand why she didn't reach her goal. Where did she go wrong? Was she unprepared? Did she not work hard enough? Or is her talent simply in another area?

This kind of questioning may seem rather sophisticated for a young child, but will teach an important lesson: failure can be viewed as a springboard to improvement, not as a dead-end or a reason for self-pity.

Would most parents like to provide a disappointment-free life for their kids? Probably. But stop and think for a moment: Is that realistic? Do you know anyone who has not had to confront disappointment or failure? Given that reality, dont we do our kids a greater kindness when we support them in learning from disappointment than when we try to shield them from it entirely?

Parents who react to their children's failures in this manner provide skills that will last a lifetime. In other words, they raise people who are able to recognize their own competence -- and never give up!

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Andrea Patten

Throughout her life, Andrea Patten has distinguished herself as a creative problem-solver. She particularly enjoys finding practical commonalities between apparently 'dissimilar' services, ideas or methods, making them all stronger in the process. In her career as a licensed addictions counselor she found a niche in program development helping organizations bring such innovations as bilingual programming, family treatment and networking for comprehensive client care.

When her son was young, she took a break from human services and studied marketing in one of her father's companies. There she discovered more similarities. "Whether it's a product, a service or a message it needs to be presented in a way that it will serve its intended audience."

A few years later, Andrea was probably as surprised as anyone to find herself once again serving families with substance abuse issues. Hired to assist a child protection organization improve interventions for kids at risk due to parental substance abuse, she became part of a team that provided home-based services to families,and developed training to enhance social workers' knowledge of addiction and addiction counselors' ability to work with family violence issues. She provided leadership, training and support for a network of "healthy-living" foster homes. She ultimately became the director of an agency where she had the opportunity to improve services to people of all ages suffering the effects of family violence.

"Teaming with my father to write 'What Kids Need...' was a tremendous growth opportunity for me. It took me out of a familiar role and let me try to reach families in an entirely new manner. My favorite part of direct service work was always helping people to identify and connect with the well of optimism and strength inside of them. I think that this book can provide hope to families facing a wide variety of struggles."