How to support our children to deal with failure and success?
When I was younger, I remember my parents telling me the Chinese idioms, “No arrogance in victory, no despair in defeat,” and “Victory or defeat are common in military operations,” in the spirit of supporting me, who was a high achiever academically. I remember how hard it was back then (and still is at times) to deal with failure. With time and experience of growing up, I learnt to have the courage of dealing with failure and understood that it is okay to fail. I would not have known that if I were to give up trying, or if my parents decided to cushion my future for me to avoid seeing my tears.
Reflecting on personal experience and drawing on the research in childhood development and the ‘growth mindset,’ I would like to share with you seven tips that may help to support your child to learn to deal with success and failure that are unavoidable in life.
- Love unconditionally. Give plenty of attention and time for connection with your child no matter what test results they bring back, or whether or not they are elite and passionate sports players. Let your child know that achievement is NOT the way to secure your attention or affection to them.
- Accept that you can’t protect your child from tears and heartache. When your child is upset from failing a test or failing the grading in sports, we as parents may feel like we want to take away their tears and make them feel better straight away (e.g., talking to the teacher and/or problem solve for them). Acknowledge your need to problem solve or push away their discomfort, but do not let it take over. Take a step back, breathe and listen to your child. Allow them to feel whatever emotions they may have. If you do not feel comfortable with their heartache, it sends a message to them that failure is bad and debilitating.
- View failure/ mistake/ setback as an opportunity to learn. Children learn consciously and unconsciously from our mindset. If we celebrate mistakes and setback the same way as we celebrate success, our children would see that mistakes are okay and this is all part of an ongoing process to learn. Without these setbacks or mistakes, we would not be able to revise our strategies and reflect on how we can improve ourselves. When your child is upset because he or she has a setback, take that as a time to strengthen his or her growth mindset. After acknowledging and reflecting his or her feelings, ask, “What did you learn from this mistake/setback?”
- Focus on praising your child’s effort, improvement and overcoming a hurdle in learning. Do not praise your child for achievement only. This may set them up to think that achievement is the only thing to strive for and others are unacceptable. Praise them for their willingness to give it go. Praise them for courage. Tell them how you love that they are problem solving and learning from mistakes. Tell them that it is not about winning and losing. It is about having fun and learning.
- Stop comparing your child with others and encourage your child to focus on his/her own progress and personal best. Our human mind gets trapped into making comparisons with others easily. As a result, we can get frustrated with ourselves if we are worse off and get arrogant if we are better off. These are unhealthy and unnecessary comparisons that our children do not need. Encourage them to strive for personal best and compare to their yesterday selves. If they cannot master the skills, they cannot master the skills ‘YET’.
- Talk about brain development, growth vs fixed mindset, your own setback and failure and how you return stronger from failure. As neurological research has demonstrated, our brain is experience-dependent. The more we try and practice certain skills, the better we will become at it. Our abilities are not fixed. Google these concepts together with your child and learn to put them into practice together. For example, my child is learning basketball. He gets frustrated easily and wants to give up. We googled and watched Youtube videos of Michael Jordan together to see how he viewed success and failure. Sharing your personal experience is also very important to normalise the gain and loss in life. Children love to hear our story!
- Model and support self-compassion and self-care. If we truly embrace the spirit of “no despair in defeat,” we also need to show how to stand back up again with self-compassion and courage in our action. Help your child to identify the negative self-talk and ask your child, “Would you say things like that if your best friend failed the test?” Maybe not. Teach and show your child that you can be kind to yourself and look after yourself in times of setback. Support your child with positive affirmations. For what we know, our voices are going to be the voices in their head.
Reference:
https://biglifejournal.com/blogs/blog/help-your-child-overcome-fear-of-failure
https://childmind.org/article/how-to-help-kids-learn-to-fail/