Why should parents allow children to fail, according to experts

Did your child forget his lunch? Chapter offer? It is left outside the group chat? Oof. The parenting desire to join and fix things is real. But this is the difficult truth – every time we save our children, we may make things bad for them in the long run.

research It indicates that slight struggles now build confidence, flexibility and problem solving skills later for children. When we let children fail to develop in advanced ways, they only learn how to deal with failure – learn how to recover from it.

Jessica Lahi, author of the book “The gift of failure”, is witnessing this directly: she travels to schools throughout the United States and leaves her email address so that children can reach it. Most of the messages that children receive tell that they will never restrict and that many believe that their parents’ love for them is linked to their performance in school.

Watching our children fails is uncomfortable, but retreating is one of the best things we can do for them, allowing them to develop the skills they will need for life. Here is why – and how – allow children to fail in a way that helps them grow.

Experts appeared in this article

Jessica Lahi He is a writer, speaker and author of the book “The Gift of Failure”.

Reading KendraPhD, is the vice president of treatment at Brightline.

Why are parents struggling to allow their children to fail

Logically, parents know that failure is an educational opportunity, so why do we deal with allowing our children to conflict? “It comes from the place of love, sympathy, and a deep biological instinct to protect our children,” explains Laey.

“Failure – in big and small ways – is certainty in life. Most of the misconceptions that I see about failure come from thinking about the concept in terms of absolute,” added Kindra Reed, PhD, Vice President of the treatment in Bright Line. When parents believe that children should never fail or when they repeat the consequences of small failures, they do not put children to succeed in the long term.

Another challenge is that many modern parents have fewer children later in life and apply problem solving skills in the workplace to paternity and motherhood. “We take the tools and knowledge that we have learned from work and transfer them to paternity and motherhood, but we do not get a lot of comments as fathers. So, we participate in the failure of our children and the successes of our children.” We tend to bear the blame that children should have instead of helping them learn through experience.

When we enter constantly, we know the children unintentionally. “We tell them,” I do not think you are qualified enough to do this yourself. “Over time, children absorb this belief, undermine their confidence and their ability to deal with challenges.

Science behind failure and growth

Flexibility was built through the conflict. Dr. Reed says that the difference between a person with great appreciation for himself and a person who has a low self -esteem is not the lack of failure. It is the ability to realize that failure is normal, and that the value of the self is not related to perfection. “If you don’t have the opportunity to experience failure, you will not have the opportunity to practice these skills.”

Children need what Laey calls “desired difficulties” – the challenges that you feel hard but are within their ability to overcome. She indicates Lawrence Steinberg’s research When risk, which indicates the fact that the physical restrictions of a small child will prevent them from being harmed. Think of a teenager who never climbed a tree and suddenly missed by friends to do so. As a young child, they could not go up to a height, but now the risk of developing much more. “We need to allow children to try suitable things in development, even if we are afraid,” says Lahi.

Another factor that must be observed is parental residence. This desire to save children from uncomfortable experiences leads to changing the environment in a way that prevents children from learning that events may not be bad as they believed. “When we enter constantly to prevent distress, we know our children that we do not think they can deal with the challenge,” says Dr. Reid. This avoidance perpetuates that the course increases children’s anxiety over time instead of reducing it.

How do you let your children fail – without allowing them to flounder

If you need to integrate more successful failure in your family life, start with small, low -risk challenges. Before entering to help the child, Lae suggests to ask yourself, “Do you deprive my child of an educational opportunity?” It provides examples such as allowing your children to request their food or manage their homework. “Even if you have shy children, they must eventually talk to adults, so help them learn that skill,” says Lahi. In addition, these experiments act as stones for later challenges later in life.

As a family, transform how you talk about failure and success. When the child comes to you with a problem, resist the desire to provide immediate help or reassurance. Instead, ask, “What do you think?” And give them a space for weight to encourage self -thinking and solve problems.

Dr. Reed also warns of the temptation of a parent to issue a blanket cleansing of children like “it will be good” or “not a big problem!” “When we do so, we tend to nullify what our children feel unintentionally,” she says. Instead, admit their feelings and discuss potential results, including what will happen in the end if the worst thing happens. This helps children build realistic expectations and confidence in your advice, says Dr. Reed.

Use these discussions to encourage perfection. Try to change the concentration of results (grades, prizes, etc.) to effort and perseverance to help you and your child to start seeing failure as an educational opportunity. Instead of jumping to fix errors, Laey says, “Stop. Take a breath. Ask yourself, are there skills that are important to learn? And if you take over, will I deprive my child of this life experience?”

Finally, the normalization of failure at home. Let children see your mistakes or talk about your mistakes that you made and how you dealt with them. When your children make errors, Laey suggests to ask, “Do I want my child to do so perfectly safely now, or to be able to do this next time?” If your children are connected by trying to do this themselves or feel uncomfortable with failure, and working to tell them, “I know this is difficult, and I know that you can do that” instead of interfering.

The same advice applies to parents learn to decline. It may be difficult, but you can do this.

Long -term return: raising human beings are confident and capable

Parents and motherhood trends are transformed. Gen X Kids usually has more independence, while the millennial generation is often heavy. Now, a balanced and balanced approach appears – an approach that enhances independence while providing support.

Children who fail, recover and try again grow to adults who can move in setbacks, solve problems, and call for themselves. The ability to take action in the face of challenges is a skill that no one can learn for and cannot be taken away.

Dr. Reed also notes that all environments are not equally safe, especially for black and transgender youth and the non -asymmetric sexes. The wise approach to independence provides both skills building and safety considerations.

It can be abandoning the challenge, but as Laey reminds us, “Learning opportunities do not occur in our temporal schedule. It occurs when the child needs to learn something, and there is a limited number of opportunities during their time with us.” As fathers, our mission is to make sure that we do not miss those moments.

By allowing children to experience failure in a safe and supportive environment, we give them tools to move in life with confidence, flexibility and self -eradication. This is the ultimate victory for parenting and motherhood.