Failing Kids

Parents need to let their kids fail, and as students, we need to accept failure.

I am sure we can all remember back to when we were little and would get mad at our parents, run up the stairs, and slam the door. For most of us, this was years ago, but for some it may have just been this morning. Maybe your parents come into your room everyday asking about failed tests and missing assignments. This kind of pestering, when taken to an extreme, is called overparenting.

Overparenting is defined as being excessively involved in the day to day life of one’s child, typically in the desire to shield them from difficult situations or failure.

In general, it is better to allow your child to learn by making mistakes than by rescuing them from the mistake. Parents cannot do everything for their children, nor can they give them total free reign. They need to know when to help and when to let go.

Teacher Jessica Lahey talks about when she brought in a mom because her daughter had plagiarized a paper, and the mom told Lahey that she had written the paper herself. Another extreme overparenting example was when a boy went to a college interview at Harvard and was caught giving responses that his mother was texting him.

Failure is an important aspect of kids’ lives, yet parents strive to remove it.

As students, we need to understand that it is okay to make mistakes in sports and in school. If we do not question the things we are learning, and do not mistakes we will not learn. Learning from mistakes is a necessary aspect of life. It gives us the experience we need to face new issues and know from your past how to handle it.

Oscar Wilde said, “Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”  Many people, especially children, are afraid to make mistakes because of what others, often their parents, might think.

Steven Sussman, expert in child and adolescent behavior says, “Some parents say that if they aren’t going to be able to get a 90 or 95 for whatever reason, whether learning disability or attention deficit disorder or something entirely different, these kids won’t study at all because they know their parents won’t be happy with a 70 or a 75, even if the child tried hard.” The child is afraid to fail because they know that their parents will be upset with them. This demonstrates also the fear parents have of allowing their children to make mistakes and learn from them.

So how do we fix this issue of overparenting that has become so prevalent in our society? Psychologist Madeline Levine writes in her book Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success that helping our kids learn from their mistakes and recover from failure is one of the most important things parents can do.

And journalist and mother of four Samantha Parent Walravens describes it this way: “Rather than shield them from disappointment, we should give them the tools needed to cope with the setbacks that life with inevitably throw their way. Most successes do not come without failure.” This speaks to the parents. It shows both how and why to allow your child to fail, but also demonstrates the need to help your child cope with failure and disappointment.

The energy used in overparenting ought to be used in helping your child to learn to fail well.

Failure is a necessary aspect of life. From it, we gain experience and knowledge from our past of how to handle future situations. As parents, it is necessary to allow your child to fail. And as students, it is vital that we accept failure as a way to learn and improve.

Parents: your child does not have to love every minute of life.

Dr. Tim Elmore, founder and president of Growing Leaders, may say it best: “[They will] get over the disappointment of failure, but [they] will not get over the effects of being spoiled. So let them fail, let them fall, and let them fight for what they really value. If parents treat their kids as fragile, they will surely grow up and be fragile adults. Parents must prepare their kids for the world that awaits them. Our world needs resilient adults, not fragile ones.