Protecting children from failure isn’t helpful. Better to build their resilience In recent years there has been a concerted effort to protect children from failure to safeguard their fragile self-esteem. This seems logical — failure is unpleasant. It tends to make them look bad, and have negative feelings of disappointment and frustration. And often they have to start again. While this is logical, it actually has the opposite effect. Children and adolescents in Australia appear less able to cope than ever before. The problem is, that in our efforts to protect children, we take valuable learning opportunities away from them. Failure offers benefits that cannot be gained any other way. Failure is a gift disguised as bad experience. Failure is not the a bsence of success, but experience of failure on the road to success. Gift of coping When we fail, we experience negative emotions such as disappointment and frustration. When children are protected from these experiences they can believe they are powerless and have no control over mastery.The answer is not to avoid failure, but to learn how to cope with small failures. Low-level challenges have been called “steeling events”. Protecting children from these events is more likely to increase their vulnerability than promote resilience. When adults prevent failure so children do not have to experience it, the latter become more vulnerable to future experiences of failure. Gift of understanding natural consequences One of the greatest gifts failure brings is we learn natural consequences of our decisions. It’s a very simple concept developed by early behaviourists: “when I do X, Y happens”. If I don’t study, I will fail; if I don’t practise, I might lose my place in the team. Allowing children to experience these outcomes teaches them the power of their decisions. When parents and teachers derail this process by protecting children from failure, they stand in the way of natural consequences. Studies show children who are protected from failure are depressed and become less satisfied with life in adulthood. Gift of learning Mistakes are the essence of learning. As we have new experiences and develop competence, it’s inevitable we make mistakes. If failure is construed as a sign of incompetence and something to be avoided (rather than a normal experience), children will start to avoid challenges necessary for learning. Failure is only a gift if children view it as an opportunity rather than threat. This depends on their mindset. Children with a growth mindset believe intelligence is malleable and can be changed with effort. Those with a fixed mindset believe they were born with a maximum level of intelligence. Therefore, failure is a signal for growth mindset children to try harder or differently. But for children with a fixed mindset it’s a sign they aren’t smart enough. Praise should focus on effort Praise can be used to compensate and encourage children when they experience failure. We see this when children get a participation ribbon for coming last in a running race. But paradoxically, research indicates inflated praise has…
