It's Okay to Fail
Failing and making mistakes is how people used to learn. Baby Boomers and GenX were still part of the generation that played outside without any supervision. They broke some windows, paid for them; skinned knees and kept going; took clocks apart (with or without being able to put them back together); learned to fix bike chains (or carry the bike home) or wait behind the locked door if they forgot or lost their keys. No cell phone in their pocket to call their parents for help. This is not to say that life should not go on or that we shouldn’t help our children at all but even today, any unnecessary help is truly a hindrance in your child’s life.
Children need to learn that they are capable. They need adults in their life to tell them so (and believe it so). But most importantly, children need opportunities to practice failure and success. Yes, you can handle homework.(yes, you can ask for help, or get a failing grade and do better next time) Yes, you can bring the trash out. Yes, you are old enough to make your own lunch. Yes, you can get up early and show up for your zoom lessons (a new thing in 2020). Yes, you can adapt. And so on and so forth.
Children need to be told that giving up is not an option. They need to make friends with mistakes. They need to see failure as an opportunity to learn and do better next time. They need to hear and be inspired by Edison’s famous quote: I have not failed 10,000 times - “I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will NOT work.”
The journey begins in toddlerhood. As new primary Montessori guides, we have been taught to keep our hands behind our back at first as not to interfere or offer our help when a 3-year old is working on fastening his buttons or putting on his shoes all by himself for 30 minutes straight. This struggle we witness (and so want to alleviate by helping) is as necessary for the child’s development and growth as air is for breathing. This is when the child learns that he can! There is only a short little step from learning to zipper up their jackets to independently completing their homework in the elementary years on their own. They truly can do things for themselves. You just give them time, freedom to act and observe.
Self-correction, cause and effect, are you child’s best teachers. If I forgot to pack my lunch, I am going to be hungry. If I don’t wash my clothes, I soon will run out of clean clothes. If I don’t do my homework, I will get a bad grade, etc. No parent of the Baby Boomers or Gen X that I know of helped their child with homework. I also have found that Montessori educated children show the same independence when moving to the public school environment where there is homework. Even though they have never had grades, tests or homework, they have been raised to be responsible and take pride in conducting their own life. They overcome the challenges of the new environment because they believe they can!
I would like to end this article with my favorite Glennon Doyle quote: Yes, “we can do hard things!”