My New Favorite Word

Failure. What comes to mind when you hear that word? Here is something I never thought I’d say. Failure is becoming one of my favorite words. Here’s why.

Early on in my career working with college students, I saw a lot of young adults really struggle when something did not go their way. It could be about a class, a relationship, or even just missing the bus to campus. At first, it struck me as surprising that one failure or mistake could land someone in a psychologist’s office. But after really listening, it made perfect sense. So many of these young adults had actually never failed before, like EVER! Failing for the first time at 18 or older was hard, very uncomfortable, and often left the person completely devastated.  

Fast forward to today. Currently I am a mom to a 6th and 3rd grader. It is always hard for me but I try, when appropriate, to let my kids fail and face the natural consequences. For example, just yesterday my 3rd grader left his school iPad (which he is required to bring to school everyday) at home. I noticed it about 10 minutes after he left for school. Now believe me, my natural instinct was to grab it and run it up to school. Pretty simple, we live half a block from the school.  Problem solved, right? Wrong! I paused and remembered all those devastated students who have sat in my office unable to tolerate mistakes. Instead, I asked myself these questions:

1. What will happen if my son does not have his iPad at school today?
2. What will the benefit be if I bring it to him? 
3. Will there be any major and/or long-term consequences?

When I took the time to think it through, I realized that if my son did not have his iPad he would have to figure out a way to get his work done. If I brought it to him, he likely wouldn’t be so careful in the future knowing that mom could always swoop in to rescue him. Sure he might be happy in the short term, but I am robbing him of a more important opportunity to grow. Plus, given that he is in 3rd grade, there really wouldn’t be any major consequences. So as painful as it was for me, I let his iPad sit on the couch till he got home from school.  I prepared for him to come home and potentially have a meltdown over this error. Amazingly, he did not even mention it until about 30 minutes after he got back. He shared with me how he problem solved so that he could still do his work and was not bothered about it in the least. Even better, when he packed up his backpack this morning, he doubled checked to make sure the iPad was there. 

Now of course as kids get older, the stakes get higher. I get it. But I know that if we start with little mistakes like forgetting an iPad while our kids are younger, the more likely they will be able to handle the bigger problems when they are older.