The Value in Teaching Your Child How to Fail

Our generation, primarily as a knee–jerk reaction to the more harsh parenting techniques that we as children endured, have raised a generation that believes that they can succeed at most everything, are perfect the way they are and really expect to win without expending the necessary effort to truly savor the victory.

This is a slight exaggeration, although it is primarily true. As parents we anguish when our child suffers. Good parents attempt to shelter their child not only from physical, but mental and emotional harm. In its purest form this is exemplary. My question is how does that prepare our precious ones for the world?

Children are cruel. Once your child steps onto the school playground, harsh reality checks begin and for the most part, go uncensored. Unfortunately these reality checks are rarely accurate because their peers, who are of the same generation and who safeguard their own egos at any cost, levy them. Is your child prepared to cope with this embarrassment and blow to their confidence?

Peers, especially as your child enters the tween years and beyond carries much more clout than their parents. What can be created is a dissonance within the child that actually inadvertently lowers their self-esteem. The dissonance is the dichotomy between “I am great” as told to them by their parents and “I don’t measure up,” freely expressed to them by their peers.

This generation is unfortunately at a distinct disadvantage when the real competition begins in high school, college, and ultimately in the corporate world. If a child is shielded from experiencing the agony of defeat, of losing or failing, the perceived impact on them when it inevitably occurs can be devastating as well as over-exaggerated. For example, observe the child who doesn’t get a trophy for coming in fourth place in Little League, or who’s parents don’t complete or help them complete challenging homework and so rather than receiving an ‘A’ they receive a ‘C’ on that particular assignment. By most standards this child failed relative to their peers. Yet, when these children face defeat later in life, they have mental and emotional templates to fall back on that assists them in coping with the hurtful feelings and temporary embarrassment. They can successfully reason with themselves in a very believable way that this event is not catastrophic because they have already been in a similar situation and persevered.

The college coed who lacks such a template because they have never been allowed to fail can develop aversions to challenge, become depressed, panicked and even completely surrender when placed in an academic or athletic environment inhabited by many superstars besides themselves. They often do not know how to express and/or normalize their pain and embarrassment because they have no template... and quite often their parents are not close enough to give them the support they so desperately require.

As adults, how many of you have witnessed this in your own professional environment? Who protests the loudest about inequities in bonus structures, advancement requirements, and workloads? Very often, it is the individual who possesses an over-inflated perception of self and no drive to prove their worth. Those roots run long and deep…long before their most recent promotion. For these individuals, consultation with a licensed professional provides the most opportunity for growth.

So what is the solution as parents? Monitor your children’s activities. Notice whether their activities are unbalanced, meaning that little effort is required of them because your child is a superstar. If they are gifted in sports, add an activity where they may need to struggle to advance. If they are excellent writers, challenge them with math and/or science. The key here is exposure and balance. A child is very able to assess their skill level compared to their peers. Do not over-inflate their accomplishments when they are mediocre. That does not mean that you need to be harsh, it means that you need to be honest.

The parents that I have had the privilege of working with share a universal desire to raise children who, when they leave their nests, have acquired the life skills to cope gracefully with both failure and success. Part of that learning curve is enduring the pain of witnessing your child struggle and the comfort lies in your ability to guide them through it. We have relatively few years to accomplish this goal, so while holding them tightly - be their most honest critic as well as their most loyal fan!