Embracing Mistakes

I love my kids with all my heart. There is literally nothing that I would not do for them. Rarely do you meet parents who feel otherwise. We want what is best for them. We always want to be there for them. If we could give them a gift that would almost ensure success, wouldn’t we do it?

Mistakes.

We all make them. We all dread them. We have all suffered consequences for them. As parents, we have all watched our children make them. Our responses vary:

·      We become frustrated with our children and lecture (sometimes rather boldly) on how their decision was a terrible one.

·      We attempt to come to their rescue. They mess up and it becomes our responsibility to fix. We maneuver and manipulate to relieve our children from feeling pain or consequences in the name of “loving” our children.

·      We issue swift consequences in hopes to prevent another mistake.

·      We set higher expectations and put fear in them if they don’t achieve.

·      We ignore and hope it will fix itself.

I know I have been guilty at one time or another of all the above. But what if we took a different approach? What if we changed our attitude towards mistakes. What if we looked at making mistakes as an opportunity to learn – to grow? What if we taught our children that making mistakes and experiencing failure was a part of life and necessary to grow emotionally and academically? Instead of reacting to mistakes, what if we sat down and reflected with our children on how they could use their mistakes as a learning experience to grow, mature, and define how they will react the next time?

Does this mean that we take away consequences? Absolutely not. Life always has consequences, even as adults. But we grow as individuals by taking risks, trying new things, exploring…. and yes…..even messing up. Life is messy. But if we teach our children to seek challenges and not fear failure, we will develop a growth mindset in our children that teach they are capable of doing far more than they ever anticipated. Growth mindset does not come naturally. It is taught and supported. Research has shown that people who have a growth mindset reach higher aspirations, surpassing many of the goals that they imagined.

We need to teach our children that they have great control over their life -much of it is mindset. Don’t always take the easy road!  Set high goals for them and tell them to fight hard. When they mess up, reflect with them on how they can “flip the switch” to turn the mistake or failure into something positive.  Teaching strategies to bounce back from mistakes teaches resilience, which is a necessary life skill.

Our reaction and viewpoint of mistakes will shape the mindset of our young ones. As adults, our role in shaping the mindset of children is great.

IQ does not determine the person our children will become.

Circumstances do not determine who our children will become.

Mindset does. No one is perfect. Our kids will make mistakes. But tell them to go for it! Take risks! Our kids must be taught that mistakes and failures do not define an individual, but our personal reaction to them does.