[toc]<\/p>\n
At New Haven, we often ask our students, \u201cWhat would you try if you knew you could not fail?\u201d This question helps teens see what is possible without fear, but it also contributes to the mindset that failure is bad.\u00a0 We should be asking, \u201cWhat would you try if you knew that you will fail again and again, but eventually succeed?\u201d\u00a0 Instead of teaching that \u201cFailure is not an option\u201d parents should emphasize that without struggle, there can be no progress.\u00a0 Or as Maya Angelou put it:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n In order to understand how you can allow your children to fail, it is important to understand why parents protect their children from failure.<\/p>\n No parent wants to see their child fail.\u00a0 Failing hurts.\u00a0 Babies bang a lot of foreheads and skin many knees before they learn to walk on their own.\u00a0 The same goes for our teenagers.\u00a0 It is hard to see your daughter pour her heart into studying for a Math test, only to get a C. \u00a0You want them to succeed, but most of all you want to protect them from pain.<\/p>\n You have all been taught that success is a formula\u00a0and that happiness rides on succeeding right now. You may think that if our kids mess up in the moment, somehow the formula won\u2019t turn out. That means kids have to do well in high school just to get into college. Then they have to do well in college to get the right job. And they have to get the right job to live happily ever after.\u00a0 This is the script that runs through every parent\u2019s head:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cThese are parents who\u2026 are so caught up in the script that runs through their heads about how to \u201cdo right\u201d by their children that they can\u2019t see when the excesses of keeping up, bulking up, getting a leg up and generally running scared send the whole enterprise of ostensible care and nurturing right off the rails.\u201d<\/em> \u2013Judith Warner, How to Raise a Child, New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n The world often sees children as a reflection of their parents.\u00a0 The common belief is that when your teen fails, it reflects poorly on you.\u00a0 By the same measure, when your children succeed it is an indication that you\u2019re doing something right. \u00a0No one wants to be judged.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Whatever the reason, it becomes second nature to protect your children from failure.\u00a0 But failure is a part of growing.\u00a0 Even though you have the best intentions, you have to let your kids fail.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a central paradox of contemporary parenting, in fact: we have an acute, almost biological impulse to provide for our children, to give them everything they want and need, to protect them from the dangers and discomforts both large and small.\u00a0 And yet we know \u2013 on some level, at least \u2013 that what kids need more than anything is a little hardship: some challenge, some deprivation that they can overcome, even if just to prove to themselves that they can.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Paul Tough, How Children Succeed<\/p>\n Here are three ways parents can overcome their fear of letting their children fail.<\/p>\n Most parent\/child relationships more closely resemble the manager\/employee dynamic. If children fail at anything, they are seen as incapable and should be \u201cfired\u201d. The message is often implied or even stated that failure is not an option.\u00a0 As a result, parents slowly take over the responsibility of \u201cmanaging\u201d academics, athletics and relationships to prevent failure and pain.<\/p>\n Try viewing \u201cfailure\u201d as an opportunity to empower your daughter and strengthen your relationship with her.\u00a0 If she fails, be there to listen, support and validate her feelings.\u00a0 Then when she feels supported, ask her what she wants to learn from the situation.\u00a0 Help her work through any disappointment and help her prepare herself to do better next time.\u00a0 Let her try again and fail again.\u00a0 Through this process, she\u2019ll learn that \u201cFailures, repeated failures, are signposts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.<\/em>\u201d (C. S. Lewis)<\/p>\n \u201cNever confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.\u201d<\/em> ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald<\/p>\n Teaching your children about failure changes your relationship from a \u201cResponsible for\u201d mindset to one of \u201cResponsible to.\u201d\u00a0 Rather than feeling responsible for your daughter and her actions, you feel responsible to teach and empower her.<\/p>\n Feeling \u201cresponsible for\u201d children\u2019s actions can lead to parents overcompensating for real or perceived deficits. Just like crawling, walking and language are important developmental markers for babies, skills like conflict resolution, problem-solving and dealing with authority figures are important development markers for teenagers.\u00a0 When parents overcompensate for children\u2019s deficits they rob teens of opportunities to improve developmental skills.<\/p>\n Feeling \u201cresponsible to\u201d teach, guide and empower children allows parents to create space for failure and challenges.\u00a0 Teenagers can then use this space to hone these important developmental skills.\u00a0 Over time, the deficits become strengths.<\/p>\n If your daughter is going to feel comfortable failing, she needs to know that your relationship isn\u2019t dependent on her success.\u00a0 Build a strong relationship with a safe environment. That means evaluating other relationships, too.\u00a0 Healthy relationships between parents, regardless of your\u00a0family situation (married, separated or divorced), help provide the structure and communication necessary for a safe environment.<\/p>\n Teenagers often use small disagreements or lack of communication between parents as a way of splitting them.\u00a0 This helps them avoid accountability for failure.\u00a0 If you find yourself being frustrated with your children:<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, nothing matters more than your relationship \u2014 not grades, not whether they made the traveling team or their SAT scores. Because in adolescence, when kids can do whatever they feel like, if you don’t have a good relationship, you’re in trouble.\u201d<\/em> -Dr. Madeline Levine<\/a>, Psychologist & Founder of Challenge Success, a project of the Stanford Graduate School of Education.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to lower your standards for your kids, but you may have to change expectations.\u00a0 Remember, when you feel responsible to empower your children, it changes how you approach failure.\u00a0 Failure becomes a stepping stone to success rather than something to be avoided.<\/p>\n Treating your children as if they are too fragile to handle failure is weakening their sense of self-worth, ability to self-regulate and capacity to maintain healthy relationships.\u00a0 It increases their entitlement and conditions them to see others as responsible for their health, wellbeing and successes\/failures.\u00a0 Parents need to let their children fail.\u00a0 Then can parents teach, \u201cWithout struggle, there can be no progress.\u201d<\/p>\n If you want to learn more about the benefits of letting kids fail, we recommend the following resources:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Matt Bartlett is the Executive Director of New Haven’s Saratoga Springs Campus<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [toc] At New Haven, we often ask our students, \u201cWhat would you try if you knew you could not fail?\u201d This question helps teens see what is possible without fear, …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":5041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[180,55,290],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5032"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5032"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18227,"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5032\/revisions\/18227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newhavenrtc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why Parents Protect Their Children from Failure<\/h2>\n
Failure is Painful<\/h4>\n
Parents Want Their Children to be Happy<\/h4>\n
Parents don\u2019t want to be judged<\/h4>\n
Overcoming the Fear of \u201cFailing\u201d Children<\/h2>\n
Parenting Isn\u2019t a Business<\/h4>\n
Teaching your kids about failure<\/h4>\n
Strong Relationships Create Space for Failing Safely<\/h4>\n
\n
Letting Your Children Fail Doesn\u2019t Mean Lowering Your Standards<\/h4>\n
How to Start Letting Your Children Fail:<\/h2>\n
\n
Parents Need to Let their Children Fail<\/h2>\n
Additional Resources:<\/h2>\n
\n
\n