To Parents: Let Your Kids Fail All. The. Time
We live in a world where mastery and perfection are revered. Especially in the world of social media and sulking ads made of manufactured images, it’s hard to create a deeper understanding of how we should live our lives.
As a millennial parent, I feel like there’s a shift with how we educate our children nowadays. Being in a generation where parents can be strict and at the same time endearing, I grew up with this certain mindset that if I do things right, if I check all of these boxes, I’d go about life worry-free.
But that’s not necessarily the case. Growing up, leading teams, interacting with people all over the world has made me realize how important our diversity is. Anyone who knows me would ascertain that I’m an extrovert. It may be easy for me to talk to people, but at the same time, I deeply value introverts’ insights, too.
We’re also at this stage of societal shift where we’re breaking barriers on our definition of what “success” is and how it should look like. Now, we have best-selling self-published poets, craftsmen making a million dollars per year out of Etsy, and even teenager CEOs.
Because of this, we realize that there’s no one fixed path. For this generation of parents, I hope we understand this ourselves. When we were brought up, or at least on my end, if you don’t follow the rules, you get punished. This prohibits children from ever trying. If they make a mistake, it’s the end of the world. I’ve seen people my age develop this deep fear of failure because of how this was ingrained in them when they were children. Now, they just fear anything that goes outside their box of comfort.
What we should take away from this is to teach ourselves first the value of failure. Because as cliche as it sounds, failure is the most excellent teacher. You can study all the theories you want, but if you haven’t experienced it, you can’t really do it right.
It’s actually hard to practice this on my end, too. Every day is a learning process. But knowing that everything we say and do influences our children helps me put things in perspective.
It’s in their nature to be inquisitive. But, if we limit their platform, their avenue for exploration, this curiosity would die out.
Instead of focusing on how to get perfect grades or test scores, encourage them to deepen their understanding. Allow them to imagine, visualize, and interpret the concepts on their own.
I believe this is a promising age for parenting; an era where children can finally be who and what they want and aspire to be. Whether it be a car mechanic, a school teacher, or a monk. Happiness is the end goal, not perfection.
Because this is what life is all about: trying every day, mostly failing, and going back up again.
Build up their emotional strength. Teach them to thrive in adversity. Show them that they can surpass challenges because that’s how strong they are.
It’s time for us, parents, to be more comfortable in allowing our children to tumble. Stop overprotecting them from the world so we can see how brightly they can shine on their own.
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