Do you think it's good to set a kid up for disappointment so they can learn the best ways of handling it?

Discussion on fb. Mom has a four year old daughter. Most of her posts are really funny things about her daughter. She’s a really good mom.

Well, she takes the kid to the pet store every so often to play with the kittens. In the past the child didn’t realize that taking one home could be an option so there was no more than the usual disappointment a kid would feel when told it was time to stop doing whatever fun thing they were doing.

Well, somehow, now she knows. She just fell in love with a gray kitty. She cried all the way home because they couldn’t bring him home with them.

Mom asked if she should stop taking her.

I said, “I would.”

Someone else said, “Well, she needs to learn how to handle disappointment, so I’d keep taking her. It’s a good life lesson.”

I said, “It is a good life lesson but why would anyone set their little child up, on purpose, for disappointment over and over and over again? There will be plenty of disappointing times in her life where she can learn that lesson.”

Someone else said, ” I don’t think it’s setting her up. She loves the pet store. I wouldn’t take that away from her. She just needs to know the rules for being allowed to go. Setting her up would be not telling her the rules in advance, letting her play with the kitty for hours and then taking it away. She’s old enough to learn there is a middle ground. She gets to visit the kitties but they can’t come home. If that’s too much right now, you take a short break and try it again later. Its not worth the effort if you don’t enjoy going, but the pet store was always a big treat for my kids.”

So, what do you guys think?