Teaching Kids to Fail Well

09/05/2016

In exploration and play children come to know 'things' not by focusing on what they are but what they can do.
Bridgette Towle and Angela Heape, in Cup: A Vibrant Vessel of Learning and Creativity

“If my child, you know, tries out for a team, or really wants to get into a certain college or gets shunned at lunch,” Brene Brown says, “am I willing to sit with her or sit with him and not fix it, but just be with her or him in the struggle? Am I willing to look over and say, ‘God, I know how crappy this feels right now?’”

Brown wants parents to let kids feel the sting of failure and learn to overcome it. Even when parents can fix something, she sees more value in teaching kids to experience the emotions that failure produces.

"Teaching them how to get curious about [failure], teaching them how to name it, teaching them how to ask for what they need," she notes, "that's the gift that parents give."

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