Did the title of the blog feel absurd?
Think of your life incidence where you actually learned to ride a
bicycle on the busy streets of Mumbai without any training wheels. You fell
many times, skinned your knees, cut your lip and hurt your ego. But you kept
getting up again and again and eventually became comfortable with pedaling. It
was an unforgettable experience for you—and similarly don’t you think it’s
important that children today have similar life lessons both at home and in school.
We live in a culture that is focused on the success of our children:
admission to the "right" schools, the best college, sports teams, and
countless other extracurricular activities. All parents want their children to
be successful. What we forget or do not know is, ‘failure’ is also an important
part of life that helps children to do trial and error and become confident in
future endeavors of life.
‘At school, it is
important that children get opportunities to participate in a lot of sports
events, debates, poster making events, quiz, etc. so that children get to
experience success and failure both during their school-age itself. And when a
child fails in any of the events, the parent and the teacher can use this
opportunity to make children understand how equally important are the experiences
of success as well as failure’ (Saleem, Abdul).
As parents and teachers, we should create an atmosphere in our homes and
classrooms whereby the children believe that there is nothing harm in
‘failing’. On one side there is ‘fail’ and on the other side, there is
‘success’. By creating an atmosphere where kids feel comfortable failing you
allow them the opportunity to learn without fear of embarrassment. This will
help them to succeed in everything that they try.
In a classroom example, if a child is continuously failing in math, a
teacher makes him understand where is he failing in understanding the concept,
or where is he missing the concentration, instead of him becoming embarrassed
for the reason that he ‘failed.
We should let our children explore and grow in areas that interest them
without worrying about what "other people" might think. Children
need to be able to explore in an environment where they are allowed to make
mistakes because their ability to recover after a mistake is what builds
resilience. Building the skills of resilience will serve them well in their
adult lives.
Resilience is the ability to withstand adversity and bounce back
from difficult life events. Resilience is important because it gives
people the strength needed to process and overcome hardship. Those lacking
resilience get easily overwhelmed and may turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms.
So what does this all mean for you as a parent or a teacher? You
shouldn’t unnecessarily become your child’s safety net when it comes to
failure. You should avoid rescuing your children every time they fall short of
a goal because it can have lasting negative effects on their motivation levels
and also a negative impact on acquiring new skills in life. Parents and
teachers need to stop protecting children and encourage them to fail.
Remember that it's ok for kids to fall down and make mistakes in
life--even big ones--to discover who they are through trial and error, and one
day become champions of success.
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Source: The above article is auto-generated through copy.ai automated article writing platform, and key inputs are added and edited by Maaz Mohammed AQ.
Maaz is a Co-Founder @ Credence Learning Foundation.
He holds an MA Education (Early Childhood Education) from Azim Premji University and he is an ex hp employee. He is an ISO 20001:2018 education internal auditor and also holds a Diploma in Counselling skills from Banjara Academy. He has also completed a basic CBT (Cognitive behaviour therapy) course under Dr. Ali Khawja.