Childhood is where we learn how to handle failure.Drazen Zigic/Getty Images
When my son was 11, he signed up for a local music competition in hopes of winning prize money. His older brother had done it the year before, and he saw it as an easy way to boost his bank account. I warned him that there are more reliable ways to earn money, but he was adamant. He practiced piano for weeks and performed well, but not as well as the other competitors. He didn’t win. No prize money was forthcoming, though he checked the mailbox for days after, half-hoping there had been a mistake.
Defeat stung. There were tears and vague accusations of unfairness, tinged with regret at perhaps not having worked as hard as he could have. As his mother, it was hard to witness the struggle. I was tempted to soothe him and say, “I don’t know why that happened. The judges messed up. You should’ve won,” but I resisted because it wasn’t true. The other performers had played better. It was a tough lesson, but an important one – that he wasn’t as good as he thought, and that getting better would take real work.
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Failure isn’t fun, but it is unavoidable. Childhood is where we learn how to handle it. If we let kids experience setbacks while the stakes are still low, they will build resilience and coping skills that will serve them later. When life throws curveballs at our children, we must resist the urge to intervene and, instead, step aside to let them handle those curveballs on their own – unless their safety is at risk, of course.
What sorts of things should we allow to happen to our children? In How to Raise an Adult, author and mother Julie Lythcott-Haims lists experiences that are hard for parents to watch, but important for kids to go through. Some examples:
- Not being invited to a birthday party
- Experiencing the death of a pet
- Being told that a class or camp is full
- Deeply regretting saying something that he or she cannot take back
- Being picked last for a sports team
- Seeing a tree he or she planted die
- Breaking something valuable
- Getting blamed for something he or she didn’t do
- Having an event cancelled because someone else misbehaved
Most of us can recall situations like these in our own lives, which may have seemed catastrophic in the moment, but that we can now recognize as making us stronger, smarter, more curious and engaged, and determined to succeed. We should remember those times and remind ourselves that letting children face consequences is a gift, not a failure of parenting.
When our children encounter failure, our role is to help them to understand their missteps and learn from them. Talk about what happened and put it into context. Ask calm questions: “What did you set out to do? What actually happened? What can you do differently next time?” Encourage your child not to wallow in shame or self-pity, but to move forward. Talk about your own failures in order to normalize it for your children and make them realize that everybody goes through this.
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Research shows that when parents treat failure as something shameful or debilitating, their children absorb that mindset. They are more likely to be derailed by mistakes, believing their abilities are fixed rather than malleable. A better approach is to have a “growth mindset”, a term popularized by Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck, which is the belief that abilities can improve through effort and strategy.
My son signed up for the same piano competition again this year. He has been practicing more seriously this time around. The songs sound polished to me, but it remains to be seen how he will be judged, as I’m sure his fellow competitors have also been working hard. But he seems less fixated on winning this year and more engaged with the process, curious about his own ability to improve and perform at a higher level. If he loses again, he will be disappointed, but he’ll also know that he can recover. And that knowledge is more valuable than any prize money.
Katherine Johnson Martinko is a Canadian writer and the author of the 2023 book Childhood Unplugged: Practical Advice to Get Kids Off Screens and Find Balance. She writes about digital minimalism, parenting and technology in her e-mail newsletter, The Analog Family.
