Should We Eliminate Failure from our Children's Lives?

In my last post, I talked about recognizing the gifts that we all have and the diversity of those gifts.  Understanding our unique abilities and working in our strengths develops a sense of self and increases self-esteem.  It gives us focus and direction in life. 

One problem we have created in the interest of making sure that all children have high self-esteem however, is that we have tried to eliminate failure from our children's lives. Both at school and at home we focus on how students can be successful and certainly we all want every child to feel successful in something. We want to identify, develop and celebrate talents. However, we also need to make sure that we don't protect children from occasionally failing at something. Why? Because we all learn a great deal from failure. Sometimes I think we learn more from failure than we do from success.

What Can Be Learned from Failure?

Many of life's great lessons are learned from failure or hardship. In fact, if you look into the background of many successful leaders past and present, you will find early lives of adversity. I'm not suggesting of course that we create hardship, there is enough of that to go around! Instead, we need to teach children the right perspective for viewing failure. We need to teach them to expect that there will be times of hardship and disappointment but that if they will put into practice what they have learned from it, they can turn failure into success. We need to teach children that failure should challenge them to do more or act differently or to become better, but not to give up.

Failure is Part of Every Success

One way we can do this is by example. We can teach children about well -known people who have overcome failure and continued to create a successful life. There are numerous examples of people who had significant periods of failure in their lives. In the political arena, Abraham Lincoln lost 6 different elections before becoming president. Thomas Edison's teachers thought he was unable to learn anything. In addition, he had 1,000 failed attempts before he created the light bulb. When asked how it felt to fail 1,000 times, he replied, " I didn't fail 1000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps." Ted Turner, founder of CNN and owner of the Braves baseball team wasasked how he kept going when his sailing team lost year after year and his baseball team came in last four years in a row (before winning the World Series). His response was, "I wasn't failing, I was learning how to suceed."  Turner's perception of failure resulted in ultimately becoming successful. We need to make sure that students learn that success often comes out of failure.

Here is a fabulous video about a boy who accepts and takes failure in stride!  He has created a monster trap that is beyond complicated.  How many tries does he think it will take to make the trap successful?  A ton!  Does he give up?  Not at all.  He is absolutely jubilent when it takes less than expected.  We can all learn something about the necessity of failure from this child. 

Parents and Educators Provide Role Models

As parents, teachers, and other significant adults, how we handle failure in our own lives will be an even more important lesson for our children than how we handle success. It will be a blueprint for our children as they face failure in their own.  We can share with children the times we have experienced failure and the lessons learned.

What about you? Has failure or hardship been something that has ultimately shaped your life for the better? What lessons would you share that you have learned from failure?

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"I Wasn't Losing, I Was Learning How To Win" Ted Turner

Image by 'PixelPlacebo' via FlickrThe character education word of the week at my school is self-confidence.  I was talking today with a first grade teacher, who always spends a good bit of time talking to her students about character education. She asked her students to share with me what they learned self-confidence means.  One student said, "Facing your fears."  One student said, "Being brave."  One student apparently went home and told her mother that they were learning about self-constipation in class this week... No doubt, her mother was a little surprised at the turn the first grade curriculum had taken...

There has been a lot of concern in recent years about self-esteem and self-confidence.  Both qualities are important aspects of a well-rounded character, however one problem we have created in the interest of making sure that all children have high self-esteem is that we have tried to eliminate failure from our children's lives.  Both at school and at home we focus on how students can be successful and certainly we all want every child to feel successful in something.  We want to identify, develop and celebrate our strengths.  However, we also need to make sure that we don't protect children from occasionally failing at something.  Why?  Because we all learn a great deal from failure.  Sometimes I think we learn more from failure than we do from success.

Many of life's great lessons are learned from failure or hardship.  In fact, if you look into the background of many successful leaders past and present, you will find early lives of adversity.  I'm not suggesting of course that we create hardship, there is enough of that to go around!  I am saying that instead of avoiding failure, we need to teach children the right perspective for viewing failure.  We need to teach them to expect that there will be times of hardship and disappointment but that  if they will put into practice what they have learned from it, they can turn failure into success.  We need to teach children that failure should challenge them to do more or act differently or to become better, but not to give up.

One way we can do this is by example.  We can teach children about well -known people who have overcome failure and continued to create a successful life. There are numerous examples of people who had significant periods of failure in their lives. In the political arena, Abraham Lincoln lost 6 different elections. Thomas Edison's teachers thought he was too stupid to learn anything.  In addition, he  had 1,000 failed attempts before he created the light bulb.  When asked how it felt to fail 1,000 times, he replied, " I didn't fail 1000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 stops." In the title of this post, we see Ted Turner's response to how he kept going when his sailing team lost year after year and his baseball team came in last four years in a row (before winning the World Series).  His perception of failure resulted in him ultimately becoming successful.  We need to make sure that students learn that success often comes out of failure.

Most importantly though, we can demonstrate learning from failure in our own lives.  We can share with our children how we have coped with adversity and how we have learned from it.  How we handle failure will be a blueprint for our children as they face failure in their own.  What about you?  Has failure or hardship been something that has ultimately shaped your life for the better?  What do you think children need to learn about failure?

How Many Positive Comments Does It Take?

I've been reading the book, The Happiness Advantage recently and it talks about the benefits of just such an approach to the people in our lives. I started thinking, "What if we as parents and teachers made sure that the ratio of our positive to negative comments to children was at least three to one?" In other words, for every negative comment we made, we followed-up with three positive comments. How would our environment change... or would we even notice?

It turns out that a lot of research has been done on this very thing by psychologist and business consultant, Marcial Losada. Based on Losada's extensive mathematical modeling, 2.9013 is the ratio of positive to negative interactions necessary to ensure success. Known as the 'Losada Line', the studies show that if you rise above this line (and ideally a ration of six to one is best), then teams produce their very best work. Sounds too easy to be true doesn't it?  Focusing on positive interactions and making sure that we provide a positive environment with more encouragement than negativity can just by itself ensure success.  This isn't about behavior charts or prizes for behavior, althought those things are often helpful.  This is about recognizing that we all perform best when we receive positive recognition for our efforts.  We know this is true for adults, but how often do we as adults feel that our job as parents and teachers is to instruct and correct children, but that positive feedback is nice but not really necessary?  How often have you heard someone say, "Why do I have to compliment them on good behavior when that is just what they are expected to do anyway?"  Turns out we can all figure out why from our own lives... positive feedback is important because we all flourish and perform best in a positive environment.  I know I do... what about you?