Monday, 24 August 2009
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"Children, it's okay to fail."
This morning over coffee I was telling my husband that I think people need to hear at a very young age that it's okay to fail.
Of course it needs to be followed with coaxing to try and put forth their best effort in all they attempt. But I think a lot of people don't make it to the trying phase because they're paralyzed by a fear of failure.
Because of my profession and the fact that my husband is a business owner, people like to tell us their ambitions and career goals. A lot of times these are stories of what someone would have liked to have done, but never gave it a go and now they feel like it's too late.
So I've been thinking about it a lot lately and my personal conclusion is that as educators and parents we would do our children a great service if we told them it's okay to fail. "If something appeals to you, try it! Give it your best effort and maybe it'll work out well. Maybe it won't. It's okay to try and fail!" I think in our society our appreciation of childhood (and adult) excellence and success far outweighs our appreciation of real effort. The dangerous outcome of that for some is a sense of defeat before they even try.
Acknowledging that great plans and best efforts might nonetheless fail and that sometimes failure is perfectly okay will remove the fear of the social stigma and embarrassment of failure. These same kids will pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and try again or try something else without a sense of total defeat from the first failure.
Remember, Michael Jordan went home crying when he was cut from his high school basketball team because he wasn't good enough. The rest is history.
(This post was based on my comment to a post by AnamcharaConcepts )
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Comments (17)
this is a great post
my mother always raised me to be a winner
subsequently I often feel like a failure
but "it's better to try and not suceed than have never tried at all"
I agree.
Failing dosen't mean you have to quit.
Great post.
My parents raised me to believe that failure is not an option. Success will only be mine if I work hard for it and truly desire it.
I guess my greatest fear is in fact failing miserably. I've just grown up with my parents always putting pressure on me to always bring home straight A's and be the perfect child. Sure, I accomplished that, but I know there will be times when I fail only to learn from my mistakes.
Amen. Without some failure, all we can hope for is mediocrity.
I completely agree. We push our children so hard and promise them success - 'if you try hard enough, you can do anything!' which really only sets them up for failure when they try and cannot succeed. Instead we should be focusing on encouraging them to try things and teaching them that failure is ok, that it was important to try and learn something about yourself and find the direction in life that is right for you. Too often failure is so devastating that these kids don't want to try again or anything else and they'll miss out on something that could have made them happy or they could have succeeded at.
My daughter is going through a tough time like this right now.
Failing teaches lessons. One can be that you must try harder. One can be that this coursework is not for you. Another can be that you must repeat the material until you DO get it. Failing is the lesson but you do NOT have to give up.
Didn't Thomas Edison fail a bunch of times before he came up with the perfect combination for the light bulb? Failure can lead to success. Good things in life don't come easy. Good post!
anything less than 90% and all i hear is "what happened?"
I can recall coaching elementary aged wrestlers and having children crying during GAMES (like relay races and belt tag) because they were afraid to make a mistake! It was horrifying! Every child should be able to try and screw up and try again until they either succeed to THEIR satisfaction or agree to move on to something else. We are raising an entire generation who are afraid to shake a hand or take a risk...it's scary!
I truly believe that many parents refuse to let their children fail because of the social impact it will have on THEM as parents (what will they think of me if my child sucks at soccer or doesn't finish his homework?!) Many believe that the lessons we learn in life through trial and error, lead us to our life's true purpose...it is that belief that causes me to think before I over-react "What's more important to me? My child becoming what he/she was meant to be or other people's opinion of ME?"
Averyswife had a great point...Thomas Edison tried 10,000 times before he succeeded...and in an interview he said "I didn't fail 10,000 times. I just found 10,000 ways it wouldn't work!"
If we as parents adopted THAT mentality of trial and error...our children would shine in their own UNIQUE BRILLIANCE.
Have a playful day!
I like this post! I agree with you. I think that the reason this really isn't done on such a wide scale, yet, is because people are afraid that if they tell their children it's okay to fail, that they will use that as an excuse to not try very hard or not try at all.
Kind of like the same way a lot of people are afraid to really talk to their kids about sex, because they are afraid that it will promote sex to them and that they will want to run out and do it.
Those are two different things with different perceived outcomes, but in a way they are the same. By not saying something, they are kind of setting their kids up for a fall in both situations.
There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but it would be nice if parents and educators would be more encouraging, as a general rule, to children but also tell them that it is alright to fail just so long as they give it their best and don't use it as an excuse to not get back up onto the horse at all. :)
Mhm. But don't always fail.
I was thinking that if you atleast try and fail, it's okay - but then, if you don't try, you can't fail; all taken care of :)العاب سيارات | العاب طبخ | العاب فلاش | العاب بنات | برامج | منتديات | دليل مواقع | شاتالعاب الطبخ | العاب تلبيس | العاب ترتيب | العاب مكياج | العاب التلبيس | العاب ميك اب | العاب باربي | العاب قص شعر | العاب ترتيب الغرفة | العاب بنات اكشن | العاب ذكاء | العاب اكشن | العاب قتال | العاب الذاكرة | العاب حربية | العاب اطفال | العاب رياضيةلعبة اكشن فتيات القوة | اكشن الجاسوسات الثلاثة | لعبة باربي | تلبيس هانا مونتانا | العاب تلبيس سندريلا | العاب باربي طبخ | ميك اب باربي | العاب تلبيس باربي | العاب لولو كاتي العاب الجاسوسات الثلاث | لعبة ستروبري| لعبة كراش| لعبة توم وجيري| لعبة سونيك | لعبة مختبر ديكستر | لعبة من سيربح المليون | لعبة تيمي ترنر | مراهقو التياتنز | العاب ناروتو | لعبة سبايدر مان | لعبة ماريو
yeah i think its okay to tell a kid that its okay to fail .. well nobodys perfect.. everyone goes thru that stage in their lives.. so its okay to fail but always remember to try again.. its never too late to try and work things out again. coz only failure defines success..
I agree 100%. I used to run a low ropes course and whenever I had particularly cocky kids or kids who thought everything was all about winning and that you were a failure if you didn't win, well, I'd set these kids up to fail on purpose. I would give them a team challenge that would be pretty difficult and as they were nearing their goal I would escalate the challenge to impossible. On one challenge I liked to take away their ability to see (with blindfolds), followed by their ability to speak (through rules), then take away their ability to communicate through hearing by making rules against lifting their feet or hands away from the element to tap or wiggle and finally, I would take away their ability to move all together. When they were finally all like "WTF?!" or somebody pointed out that the activity was literally impossible, we'd sit down in a circle and talk about failure and how sometimes it's unavoidable, sometimes we WILL fail, but what's important is our reactions to failure and how we can make the best out of any situation. Then we would talk about negative and positive things we saw during the activity-kids continuing to come up with ideas and determined to work through it even when things got REALLY difficult=positive and kids whining/complaining = negative. It was always a tough lesson and frusterating activity, but I think kids learned a lot from it.
I know I'm late but - I wish I had learned this at an early age. I think my thought processes might be different, had I learned this. I STILL haven't learned it, fully, at 23... Failure is basically not an option, and so becomes something to be feared. :sigh: Anyways... very insightful. Thanks for writing this!
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