Put that round peg into that square hole! Stretch – Reach – Grow!!!!! The question that I always asked my kids when they didn’t put forth their best effort was “Do you like being average?” Being average is only OK if that’s the best you can be.
I’ve made a mistake or two thousand in my parenting journey. My biggest mistake was in making assumptions about my child’s ability. Parents – don’t do that. If they say I want to fly to the moon your response should be “How can I help?” Encourage your children to dream big. SO WHAT IF THEY FAIL!!!!!!! Failure is an option!
Parents, sometimes we have to allow our children to take two steps backwards in order to move 3 steps forward.
There are times when you MUST allow your child to fail so that you can instill a life lesson necessary to their growth. We can, however, implement what I call “Controlled Failure.” My youngest had what I thought was a “Dress Code” issue in High School (spaghetti straps and stilettos). I could have insisted that she dress down, but I knew that the school had a dress code and spaghetti straps were definitely a violation. So, I waited for the school to give her a citation (controlled failure) so that I could make a big deal out of it. Unfortunately the school never cited her and she dressed like that for 4 years, but you see where I was headed with that controlled failure concept.
Just because it’s not broken does not mean that it don’t need fixing.
****If I could help it, I would never let my kids fail at something that had the potential to scar them for life or ruin their potential earning power.
Grandparents As Parents wrote: “Definitely a very interesting opinion on letting your child fail to learn from it. The “Controlled Failure” is an interesting model!”