All the parents, teachers & mentors teach us how to be successful and help children train their mind for it. That’s an easy conversation. But what is missed is to help the child know that failures will happen, they are inevitable. They miss coaching the child on how to deal with failures. How does one see failures as, how does one handle the failure – emotionally, mentally and physically? Now that’s a difficult conversation.
Does this mean we are seeding failure in the child’s mind? Not true. I believe it’s important that we prepare our children for life. It is better they learn it through their small dips while we are around them to guide and support instead to leave them to have a shock of their life to face an unexpected failure with not having us around.
Talking about how to deal with failures is basically to –
– help them learn to know & accept that it may happen some or the other time in life
– help them prepare well for such a situation and deal with it without breaking down
– help them give a productive meaning to it so that they become progressive, persistent & resilient
– help them experience life sportingly and become a better person than becoming a victim of their own egos.
Answer this for yourself –
- Would you not have done better in life had you been taught how to deal with failures earlier in the age?
- Had you not been comfortable and under less pressure of performance had someone told you that it’s okay to fail sometimes but what is important is to give your best to it?
- Had you not been living a better life had someone taught you not to judge someone through their scores, or the assets, etc?
- Had you not been much happier if you were taught to not race with others but with your own self?
Have these conversations with your children. Share your own failure stories and how you dealt with them.
Help them think about “what ifs” (probabilities of situations) when they are preparing for success so that no turn comes as a surprise in their journey of progress.
Help them know that it is important to be progressive than to be successful all the time.
Do this so-called ‘difficult’ responsibility as a parent, guardian or an adult. You would be proud you did.
We may be able to help our children live longer and happier than to commit suicides with petty downturns in life!
