We’ve all felt the heartbreak that comes with losing the student council election, being cut from the basketball team, or seeing a big red “f” on the test after hours of study. Personal failure is painful, but watching your child struggle through a tough failure is perhaps worse.

As parents we want our children to succeed. We push them to do better in school, sports, music, church, scouts and at home. We celebrate the touchdowns, hang “straight A” report cards on the fridge and post Homecoming Queen pictures on social media. And rightly so! Accomplishments should be celebrated.

But overemphasizing success and promoting perfectionism is not good for our kids. And trying to eliminate any disappointment, poor performances or mistakes from our children’s lives causes them to miss out on valuable growth.

If we want our kids to be confident, self-sufficient and able to pick themselves up after difficult experiences; if we want our kids to be resilient, we must allow them to fail!

Lee Ann Elzey, a school counselor in Alpine School District, explains how making a child feel safe to fail actually helps them feel safe to learn. “It’s not just to know it’s okay to make mistakes, but it’s to feel that mistakes and disappointments are opportunities to learn. Safety to fail is not just knowing, but believing that a child’s worth isn’t affected by their accomplishments and how well they do things,” she said.

Fear of being judged or disappointing someone can prevent children from trying anything new. This, in turn, removes opportunities to problem-solve and show themselves that they are able to overcome hard things.

Elzey says that it is common for parents and students to come to school counselors asking to drop a class because the student is failing. When she asks the child why they want to get out of the class they tend to say it is hard or boring or they don’t get along with the teacher.

Elzey explains, “When we talk about it for a minute, and I ask the question, ‘What can we learn from failing?’ or ‘What are you learning about this experience?’ We can determine maybe what the roadblocks are and that it’s okay that it’s hard. And maybe there’s some things we could do to help navigate that hard.”

“Once I talk to them about what it’s like to help your child keep a commitment or do something that’s difficult or work in a class with other students or teachers, (most parents will say) ‘I hadn’t thought about it like that. And I want my kids to learn.'”

She goes on, “It’s hard to learn a new instrument or speak a new language, but if a kid will stick with it for a year, whether they stay with it their whole life or not, they’re going to be learning some very important lessons. When they keep practicing something that’s hard, they’re going to get better. It’s going to get more fun. And in the end, it’s not really about the grade. It’s about the learning process. It’s about all the lessons that go along with learning from this failure experience.”

As parents, we should be careful in our reactions to a child’s failure. We shouldn’t blame them or say hurtful things like, “I knew this was going to happen.” This doesn’t mean we should allow the child to be completely unaccountable for their actions.

Elzey summarizes it like this — “We all make mistakes. That’s true. But we also want a child to be accountable. And we want them to have a learning experience, not just a free pass when they make a mistake or fail something. So we want to be careful about our words, what we say and how we say them and be thoughtful and provide support. So instead we want to do things that help them realize that they will need to be accountable and that we will support them in that path. Praising their effort rather than an outcome… Even if they feel like they’re going to fail that math test, the fact that they’ve studied really hard is something to praise.”

Allowing our children to fail can be very beneficial to them. When a child feels safe to fail they won’t be afraid to try new things. They will learn that they can overcome failures and do hard things. They will learn to problem solve. They won’t miss out on experiences because they are afraid.

Elzey concludes, “When our kids struggle, we struggle because we care about them. But we have to be careful not to let our own feelings of failure get in the way of helping our child feel safe to fail. Believe that our relationship is okay despite the failure. And that failure is just a stepping stone to learning and growing.”

To learn more about this topic, watch the EveryDay Strong video at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FhwT89swhA&list=PL-njo6XDRtC-JH3_EIJtB4jfyuQ0PG_oN&index=3.

United Way of Utah County is on a mission to help every child in our community feel safe, connected, and confident. You can listen to our latest podcast episode at anchor.fm/everydaystrong (or on Apple Podcast and Spotify). Learn more about us at everydaystrong.org.

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