What to Do if Kids Refuse Help? Tips from a San Jose Child Therapist

Does this sound familiar? Your child is working on a task that is very difficult. They are getting frustrated and are not able to complete it on their own.

You notice and as a good parent, try to step in and help. This backfires swiftly and completely with comments from your child like “I don’t need help!” “Stop, you are doing it wrong!”

As frustrating as this scenario can be for you, the concept of receiving help in completing tasks is tied to child development and self-esteem for your child. While there are some situations that could become dangerous and need you to intervene, most situations can be a growing opportunity for your child, and for you.

How to help without taking over

This comes up a lot with the families I work with as a child therapist: a parent who wants their child to be independent, and a child who is falling apart because they can't do it yet.

It's hard to watch them struggle and not fix it. But offering help isn't always about solving the problem for them. Sometimes it's about helping them find their own way through. Here are some strategies to help you do just that:

Offer help without inserting yourself

Offer general help as your child begins working on a task. Showing that you are available to assist if needed is important for your child to feel securely attached to you and be able to creatively problem solve when a task feels like too much.

Saying something like, “I’m here if you need it” or “Please let me know if you need help” gives voice and autonomy to your child.

Stepping in without an invitation to save the frustration causes a lack of a sense of control for your child; maybe they were working out how to solve the problem or were going to try another solution first before asking for your assistance.

Praise them for asking

If your child does ask you to step in, praise the act of asking for help when they need it. This reinforces the concepts that you are there to support them, asking for help isn’t bad, and that creative problem solving sometimes includes assistance from another person.

Saying something like, “Great job asking for help” or “You knew when you needed me to take a turn at that problem” is a way to positively reinforce this behavior.

Offer a break

If your child is determined to complete a task without help from a well-intentioned adult and starts getting frustrated, this may seem like the doom spiral we are trying to avoid, but it can also be a learning experience.

When children become dysregulated, the part of their brain that helps with problem solving, reasoning, and flexibility goes offline. They are in the emotional part of their brain where everything feels like it's going wrong and nothing can help.

In this state of mind, use words wisely and reduce the external stimulation when possible. This could look like turning off some lights, turning off background noise like the TV or music, or even offering a soft blanket or pillow.

Then, with scarce words, suggest the need for a break with choices. Saying something like,

“You’re getting frustrated. Would you like to take a break and come back in a few minutes?”

You can show a timer to your child to reinforce that they can come back to the task.

What this looked like on a playground

Recently, I was spending time with my cousin's children and we went to a playground nearby. This playground has a very precarious ring tube situation, where there are plastic rings suspended above the ground with differing widths in between each one. They get higher off the ground the more they progress to the center.

Anyway, the 5-year-old was very interested in exploring these rings and trying to move through all of them on her own.

It would have been very easy for me or one of the other attentive, caring, and slightly concerned adults to step in and cut off this risky climbing or insist on assistance. But we resisted the urge and let the 5-year-old lead us in stepping in when she felt it was needed.

I stood next to her as she climbed into the first ring and said, “I’m here if you need it, I can spot you so you don’t fall”. She persisted to the second and third rings without a problem.

Then the middle ring came up, and because it was further away than the previous rings, she couldn’t easily reach it with the same technique. Almost falling (a quick intervention on my end, holding her up, so there wouldn’t be a scary fall), made her stop.

At that moment, I decided to offer a suggestion, a potential solution to her task at hand. I suggested she reach with her feet instead of her hands. Eager to proceed, she tried this and was successful, still asking me to spot her for the rest of the route through the rings.

And then, of course, she wanted to try again, this time, saying she didn’t need help. So I stood next to her as she climbed through the rings, observed how she used her legs to get to the furthest one and was able to do the whole route on her own.

She was beaming and was so proud of herself. This was a moment where she faced a difficult task, was able to persist through it, got support when needed, and eventually overcame adversity.

What a great experience to have stored in her muscle memory and brain. All because we let her lead and supported her in finding her way through.

When your child gets stuck in the frustration

That afternoon on the rings is a small version of what I try to do in the playroom. I stay close, I let the child lead, and I step in when they need me, not before. Children build confidence by doing hard things with someone steady nearby, whether the hard thing is a ring that's just out of reach or a feeling that's too big. If your child gets stuck in that frustration more than you'd expect, play therapy may be worth considering. Play therapy gives children a gentle way to show their feelings and work through things like trauma and anxiety, with a child therapist who follows their lead.

If you want to talk about how play therapy and child therapy in San Jose could help your child, schedule a free 15-minute consultation with me.

About the Author: Hannah Ly, San Jose Child Therapist

Hannah Ly is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT #129711) and the founder and clinical director of Your Therapy Nook, a boutique child and teen therapy practice with offices in San Jose and Redwood City, CA. She is a child therapist, play therapist, and teen therapist, trained in Synergetic Play Therapy and Brainspotting, with a long background in adoption and foster care. Hannah does every family's first call herself, and every therapist on the team practices the way she does. Every family gets child-led play therapy or teen therapy plus parent coaching every four weeks.