Teach Your Kids to See Challenges and Failures as Opportunities
I don’t know about you, but school was a struggle for me, especially high school. While some students seemingly breezed through effortlessly, I grinded away. I studied at home, took notes, did the reading, and carefully navigated exams. Sometimes I did well in the class and life was good; other times I went down in flames. I came to recognize that, like me, every student experiences a mixture of successes and failures, but often what separates those who get stuck in the mud from those who trudge through it is how they handle setbacks and view challenges. Having a healthy attitude toward learning isn’t the entire recipe for success, but it’s undoubtedly an important ingredient.
Failure is Part of the Process
Have you ever heard people respond to setbacks by saying things like, “I’ll never be a math person,” or “There’s no way I can ever be athletic”? How about, “I just learn differently than other people”? Like me, perhaps you have said such things before. As a learning scientist who has spent a lot of time with elementary school students, I have realized that many children — perhaps even most of them — hold such counterproductive views, which means these types of attitudes manifest themselves early on in one’s life.
