Why Removing Every Struggle May Be Holding Our Children Back
Updated: Mar 10
Written by Anthony Brenner, Mentor, Coach, and Writer
Anthony Brenner is a former Division I and professional athlete, coach, and writer with over 30 years of experience working with athletes, families, and leaders globally. He integrates performance, mindfulness, and self-awareness to support sustainable growth under pressure.
One of the most common patterns I observe when working with young athletes and their families has very little to do with soccer. It has to do with discomfort. More specifically, how quickly adults move to remove it. A child feels frustration with a coach, and a parent steps in. A player struggles with confidence, and an adult offers immediate solutions. A difficult moment arises, and someone rushes to fix it.
At first glance, this seems like love, and often it is. Most parents step in because they care deeply about their child and want to protect them from unnecessary pain. But beneath that instinct is a question worth asking: Are we removing the challenge because our child truly cannot navigate it, or because their discomfort is triggering something inside of us? This quiet impulse is something I’ve come to call the fix-it reflex. And while it is almost always well-intentioned, it can unintentionally rob children of one of the most important developmental experiences they will ever have – learning how to navigate difficulty themselves.
Whose discomfort are we solving?
Children are naturally resilient. They are designed to experience frustration, uncertainty, disappointment, and growth. These moments are not signs that something is wrong; they are signs that development is happening.
Yet, in today’s youth sport culture, discomfort is often treated like a problem that needs immediate resolution. Parents frequently feel the urge to step in, advocate, correct, intervene, or protect. But often, what is actually happening in those moments is something deeper.
A child’s struggle activates something unresolved inside the parent. Maybe it reminds them of moments in their own childhood when they felt unsupported. Maybe it triggers fears about their child losing opportunities. Maybe it touches a place of helplessness that is difficult to sit with. And so, the instinct is to act.
Not always because the child needs rescue, but because the adult needs relief.
The hidden lesson children learn
When adults consistently remove discomfort for a child, the child learns something powerful. But it is not always the lesson we intend. They learn that solutions come from outside of themselves.
“Every time we remove discomfort too quickly, we may also remove the reflection that leads to growth."
When something feels difficult, someone else will step in. When something feels confusing, someone else will explain it. When something feels overwhelming, someone else will solve it.
Over time, this can quietly prevent children from developing one of the most important capacities in life: the ability to resource themselves. The ability to pause, reflect, regulate, and find their own path forward.
Instead of developing internal resilience, they begin to depend on external resolution. A coach. A parent. A mentor. Someone else.
Guidance is important, but dependence is different.
The parent with the broom
One image that often comes to mind when I observe this dynamic is something I’ve seen many times with young athletes and their families. It can feel as though a parent is walking just a few steps behind their child with a broom. Every moment of frustration… every uncomfortable conversation… every mistake or disappointment… gets quietly swept away.
The intention is loving. Parents want to make the path easier. But when everything is swept up immediately, something important disappears with it. The evidence. The evidence of struggle. The evidence of reflection. The evidence of growth.
When those moments are constantly removed, the child never has the opportunity to stop, look down, and ask themselves:
What just happened there?
What can I learn from that?
What might I do differently next time?
Those small pieces left along the path are often where the real learning lives.
For years, I’ve shared a simple belief with the players and families I work with:
"There is almost always a gift on the other side of difficulty, but we have to pause long enough to find it."
If the difficulty is immediately removed, the gift is rarely discovered.
The seed and the garden
This is why I often use the metaphor of seeds when speaking with parents. Growth works much the same way. You can plant a seed. You can nourish it. You can create the conditions for it to grow. But if you constantly dig it up to check on it… or pour too much water and fertilizer on it… you may actually slow the very growth you are hoping to support.
"Children are no different. Parents can plant seeds of encouragement, curiosity, and reflection. But growth requires space. It requires patience."
And sometimes, the most supportive thing we can do is resist the urge to sweep the path clean behind them – and trust that the moments left on the ground may contain the very lessons they need most.
The courage to let children wrestle
Some of the most important growth moments I have witnessed in young athletes did not happen when everything was going smoothly. They happened when something was difficult. A challenging conversation with a coach. A stretch of games without much playing time. A moment where confidence wavered.
These experiences are uncomfortable. But they are also incredibly valuable. They invite reflection. They build emotional awareness. They strengthen resilience.
And when children are allowed to wrestle with these experiences — with support but not rescue — something powerful happens. They begin to discover their own voice. They begin to realize they are capable of navigating uncertainty. And that realization stays with them far longer than any solution someone else could have provided.
The invitation for parents
This does not mean parents should step away or stop supporting their children. Quite the opposite. Children need the steady presence of adults who care deeply about them. But there is a difference between support and rescue.
Support might look like asking thoughtful questions rather than offering immediate answers. Support might look like listening instead of solving. Support might mean sitting beside your child while they process something difficult, rather than removing the difficulty entirely.
In those moments, parents are not abandoning their child. They are trusting them. And sometimes, the greatest gift a parent can offer is not the solution. It is the quiet confidence that their child is capable of finding their own.
When a young person begins to realize that truth, something remarkable begins to grow. Not just a stronger athlete, but a stronger human being.
Read more from Anthony Brenner
Anthony Brenner, Mentor, Coach, and Writer
Anthony Brenner is a mentor, coach, and writer whose work explores the intersection of performance, awareness, and human development. A former Division I and professional athlete, his perspective has been shaped not only by elite environments but by decades of lived experience navigating pressure, identity, and growth on and off the field. With over thirty years of experience working with athletes, families, and leaders globally, Anthony integrates technical mastery with mindfulness, emotional regulation, and intentional leadership. His work is grounded in the belief that clarity, presence, and self-awareness are foundational to sustainable performance and a meaningful life.
