Sunday, May 16, 2010

PTTC Part 13: Fear Of Failure

"Your children do not learn from their successes.
They learn from their failures.
They must have complete permission to try
and fail,
and discover that they are still OK."

I used to be terrified of failure as a kid, so much so that I was afraid to try anything new! I somehow got the message that I needed to be perfect, and if I wasn't perfect I was a failure. This is actually a common belief, and one that is detrimental to teach children! Failure is not to be feared, because without failure we can't learn anything about ourselves. Let your children make small mistakes now, so that they learn that mistakes have consequences and might remember that before they make a big mistake later. Let them try something difficult, and fail, and learn that it's OK to mess up and that if you practice and are determined you will eventually succeed.

1 comment:

  1. You speak wise words. We must give our children the opportunity to fail and to feel safe within their failure. Failure is the precursor to success. We must be able and willing to make mistakes and know that we are not a failure we simply discovered a way that did not work and we learn from that. This is an important post. Thanks for sharing.

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