5 Ways to Change How your Child thinks About Failure
We all make mistakes. Having an accident, making a not-so-sensible choice, answering a test question wrong-these are things that WILL happen to all of us. And sometimes these mistakes can lead to great discoveries about ourselves and others. Mistakes can and should be seen as opportunities.
So how can we help our children to see mistakes as wonderful moments where they can become better people?
Normalise Failure
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Michael Jordan
Our children need to understand that failure is both a common and necessary part of growing up. Communicate this to them through real-life stories, and demonstrate how every successful person fails, it’s simply a part of life.
An average successful entrepreneur fails 3.8 times. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg dropped out of university. Albert Einstein, Edgar Allan Poe, and John Shelley were all expelled from school for being mentally slow. When a baby learns to walk, it falls down a lot to learn the new skill.
On camp, and in life, children need to understand that failure is not only normal but necessary. Failures should be celebrated by children – as long as they use them as opportunities to learn.
Emphasise the Benefits
“Mistakes are proof that you’re trying.” Mark Twain
It’s completely natural to want to skip failure as it hurts. Just like getting a tooth pulled. Or avoiding eating something we don’t like. However, we need to emphasise the potential advantages that can come when making a mistake especially if they’ve ‘failed forward’. All failures have mistakes hidden in them that we can learn from, we simply miss the lesson that can teach us innovation, motivation, character and maturity, resilience, and experience.
While at summer camp, our campers are constantly in situations where they can learn these skills through our Life Skills Program and simply by ‘failing forward’. By learning from their mistakes, they are better prepared for life – real life.
Take Action
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Thomas Edison
The situation may be pure hell. The consequences may be irreversible, and they may be severe. But …. Failure rests in completely giving up. Get up and get going. No action is true failure.
Being in a warm and supportive environment is always going to encourage children to be more active when dealing with mistakes. So, on camp our children not only feel more comfortable to react to mistakes in a positive manner, but considering all the fun that they’re having it’s seen as a necessary part of camp.
Emotional Support
“We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious, we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves.” C.S. Lewis
Having someone help us is a basic need for people so it’s important that all parents look to support their children with mistakes. This doesn’t necessarily mean finding the right answer, but simply being a shoulder to cry on or listening to their feelings.
Remember:
- Solitary confinement is the worst thing you can do to a prisoner
- There are virtually no very happy loners
- Visited patients recover more quickly
- All causes of death are consistently higher for divorced, single, and widowed individuals
- When people fail, can use a hug, a hand, and/or some hot chocolate
On camp, we appreciate intelligent mistakes, work with outright gaffs, and value people’s ability to fail forward in either case. When campers fail, we offer them a hand, but not the back of it. At our morning group briefings and even reflections we discuss campers’ emotions and how they feel about their failures. During activities staff and campers encourage each other to move forward and to learn from any blunders that occur.
Taking Responsibility for Failures
“If you could kick the person responsible for most of your troubles, you wouldn’t be able to sit down for weeks.” John Maxwell
We all need to lead by example, and share stories about ourselves when making mistakes. It’s important for our children to see adults not only admitting mistakes but more importantly doing everything within their power to correct them. Only then will they be empowered to act themselves.
Mentors on camp regularly discuss mistakes and what lessons were learnt from them, just as every camper mistake is seen as a ‘teachable moment’ where campers can fail forward. On a daily basis staff members complete feedback forms outlining their own mistakes and what they learnt from them so other counsellors can learn from them.
At the end of the day, making mistakes is simply part of life. We all make them. It’s how you learn and grow from those mistakes that matters.
