How to Help Your Child Be OK With Failure
Failure is really important!
I specialize in working with kids and teens who are consistently high performers in the classroom. And a lot of times, underneath it all, there's a ton of anxiety. They worry about failure. They get so focused on small things they've done wrong that they can't see the greater picture. So for people who have serious anxiety, an A- compared to an A is a huge difference.
Failure helps you to gain perspective, and not lose the forest for the trees.
As parents, we are able to help guide our children and teens to this perspective, and recognize that challenges are opportunities for growth. Our perfectionist kids and perfectionist teens are really benefited by experiencing failure, and growing past it.
Here’s a few recommendations to try out with your kids (or yourself!)
Make meaning: find something that you can do differently next time, or incorporate this failure into your view of yourself not to someone who fails, but as someone who responds well to challenges and gets back on their feet.
Use it as an opportunity to invite feedback: Rather than just accepting a poor grade or poor performance report, elicit feedback from your teacher. This helps to give you an actual plan on how you can do better next time.
Recognize that failure helps your brain.:Growth mindset as a concept is really huge and schools right now, because it deals with how failures make you smarter. If you succeeded at everything, or if everything came easily to you, you wouldn't be challenging your brain in new ways and building stronger connections and pathways.
Deal with failure in the moment by taking a step back: Take a few deep breaths. Bring to mind other times that you bounced back from a failure. And maybe consider changing the words - from "failure" to "future opportunity."
Curious to hear more about counseling for you or your child? Compassionate Counseling St. Louis provides specialized anxiety and anger management therapy for kids, teens, and college students. We work in Clayton, MO and serve kids, teens, and college students throughout St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Ladue, University City, Town and Country, Webster Groves, Creve Coeur, Kirkwood, Richmond Heights, and Brentwood. You can set up your free phone screening to see if we’re a good fit for your needs right on our website.