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In my last newsletter I continued my discussion of the characteristics
of successful people by examining the ways in which they deal with mistakes
and failures. I noted that as a father, clinical psychologist, educator,
youth sports coach, and consultant I have been very interested in how
children and adults understand and respond to mistakes in their lives.
I strongly believe that one’s response to failure or to the possibility
of failure is a strong indication of a person’s sense of self-worth
and feelings of competence.
Last month I focused on the strategies that educators might use to lessen
the fear of failure in our youth. This month’s newsletter is dedicated
to what parents can do to help their children be less fearful about mistakes
and setbacks.
I should emphasize a point I have made in several previous articles about
the concept of success. When I refer to people as successful I am not
using as the main criteria their accumulated wealth or social status but
rather the extent to which they are comfortable and content with their
personal and professional lives, their compassion and generosity, their
ability to handle adversity, and the ease with which they relate to others.
I noted that one framework that has provided me with guideposts to assess
the ways in which we understand and respond to both mistakes and successes
is attribution theory. This theory, originally proposed by psychologist
Bernard Weiner, highlights that whether we are aware of it or not, we
assume different reasons for why we succeed and fail and that these reasons
are directly related to our self-esteem and confidence.
More specifically, successful people believe that mistakes provide opportunities
for learning and future success. They attribute mistakes to conditions
that can be changed. For instance, if children with high self-esteem fail
a test that they believe was within their ability to pass, they will seek
out the assistance of teachers or parents and/or develop more effective
strategies for studying and learning. If they are playing basketball and
an opposing player drives by them to score, they will listen closely to
the coach about how to be a more effective defensive player in the future.
It is not that they say in a jubilant voice, "I am happy to make
mistakes so that I can learn." However, they do not experience failure
as proof that they are failures. They view mistakes as expected occurrences.
In contrast, youngsters with low self-esteem are more likely to assume
that they cannot modify situations in which they made mistakes, resigning
themselves to the belief that they will continue to fail and that success
is illusory. In my role as a youth basketball coach a child once told
me, "I will never make a foul shot." He was convinced that he
would never be able to do so, a perception that limited the probability
of success in the future.
As a psychologist I have heard a wide spectrum of remarks reflecting a
sense of hopelessness in youngsters when confronted with failure or the
possibility of failure. Some are direct expressions of very low self-esteem
while others represent self-defeating attempts to escape from a sense
of failure. Such remarks include:
"Why should I try to study? I will fail anyway."
"Everyone is better than I am in spelling. Things will never get
better."
"My saxophone is bad, that’s why I can’t learn to play."
"My parents did not buy me the right kind of glue. If they did,
the model plane I made would not be broken."
If we subscribe to the basic tenets of attribution theory
then we can ask the following question, "How do I say and do things
with my children so that they will develop a healthy attitude towards
mistakes and setbacks, that they will learn that mistakes are expected
and accepted?" I would like to share some thoughts about what parents
can do to nurture a positive mindset in children about mistakes.
Serve as a Model: Children are astute observers of the ways in
which their parents handle mistakes. As parents we have countless opportunities
to model for our children a healthy attitude towards making mistakes and
dealing with setbacks. It is for this reason that I often ask parents
how they think their children would answer the following question, "What
do your parents do when they make mistakes?" At some point I would
like to write a book titled, "Children’s Perceptions of How
Their Parents Deal with Mistakes." Many parents at my workshops have
half-joking, half-not, said, "Please don’t ask my kids that
question."
I do ask it. The following are some of the negative responses I have gathered
from children:
"They yell and scream at each other. They blame each
other."
"They say, ‘What’s the use’ and give up."
"My dad said a word he always tells me not to say."
"My mom got angry at me for not wanting to join the
soccer team because I thought I wasn’t good enough. Yet, when she
was asked to give a talk for the Rotary Club in our town she made up
an excuse that she was busy. I think she was afraid, so why get angry
with me for something that she does?"
"I hate when my dad does something wrong since he usually blames
me. Like one time he went through a red light and got a ticket and then
said to me and my brother that our arguing caused him not to pay attention."
One of my all-time favorites was the response offered by
a young boy when asked his parents’ reaction to mistakes. He said,
"What’s a double martini?" Obviously his parents are not
serving as effective models.
On the positive side, I have heard:
"When my dad tries to fix something in the house
and it doesn’t work, he loves to joke and say, ‘I better pay
attention to what I’m doing.’ Usually, after that he does
an okay job."
"My mom once burned the food when my parents were having guests
over. I thought she was going to be really upset but she said to my
dad, ‘I guess we’ll have to order out.’ My dad laughed.
Their friends weren’t even upset about it and they were all joking
about times they had burned food."
"My dad was having problems with a project at work. You could tell
it was on his mind but when he was playing chess with me at night, he
seemed not to think of work. A few days later he said it was solved.
He really seemed confident."
While modeling certain behaviors as a parent doesn’t
guarantee our children will follow in our footsteps, we must remember
that we are their primary teachers and children pay close attention to
our reactions to various situations.
Use Mistakes as Teachable Moments: If we want our children to develop
the belief that mistakes are experiences from which to learn, then we
must reinforce this belief day in and day out by our response to their
mistakes. Thus, another one of my favorite questions that I ask parents
to consider is how their children would answer the following, "When
you make a mistake, when something doesn’t go right, what do your
parents say and do?" Reflect upon how your children would answer
this question.
Although most parents have told me that they want their children to learn
from mistakes, often out of frustration and anger parents say and do things
that work against this goal. The following represent comments offered
by children when describing how their parents respond to their mistakes,
beginning with a few negative examples:
"I spilled a glass of milk in a restaurant and my
mother slapped my hand and said, ‘You are so clumsy. You never
pay attention.’"
"Whenever I try something and it doesn’t work, my father says,
‘I told you it wouldn’t work.’" (In this particular
instance, the boy’s father said to me in therapy that he was very
concerned that his son gave up very easily when he couldn’t do
something. Yet the father had little appreciation of how his response
to his son was communicating a lack of trust in his son’s ability
to stick with things and succeed.)
"I caught two touchdown passes in my Pop Warner football game.
I missed one pass. When I came off the field I couldn’t believe
my father’s response. Maybe he thought he was helping me but it
hurt. He said, ‘How come you dropped that pass?’ He didn’t
even mention the two touchdown passes I caught."
A girl with learning problems said that her parents continue
to exhort her "to try harder" when she feels she is already
expending as much energy as she can.
In contrast, what follows are a few positive examples:
"My parents encourage me to try new things and remind
me that if it doesn’t work out, it’s not the end of the world."
"My mom is always there when I need help with something I have
trouble doing. But she says she will help me but not do it for me. Sometimes
I want her to do it for me but I know that she feels with her help I
can learn to do it myself."
"Before my dad taught me to ride a two-wheel bike he took out a
videotape of when he was learning to ride a two-wheeler. We laughed
at all the times he fell down. Then he said, ‘Somehow I still learned
to ride. I’m sure you’ll fall also.’ His mom and dad
were on the tape and gave him a big hug. I guess I felt less worried
about learning to ride after seeing the tape."
What will make it easier for us to use mistakes as teachable
moments? There are a number of possibilities. I would like to highlight
three.
Be Empathic. In all of my workshops and writings
I emphasize the importance of empathy. The reader may wish to refer to
my two newsletters about empathy that appeared on my website (February
and March, 1999) for a more in-depth discussion of the topic. As parents
if we wish to become more empathic and help our children deal more effectively
with mistakes we should be guided by several questions:
"When I say or do things with my children that pertain
to making mistakes, what do I hope to accomplish?"
"Am I saying or doing these things in a way that my children will
be most likely to listen to and learn from me?" This question is
very important. As we have seen, while many parents would answer the
first question by saying they want their children to feel they can learn
from mistakes, some respond in ways that result in their children feeling
humiliated and intimidated and more fearful of making mistakes.
"Would I want anyone to respond to my mistakes the way I respond
to my children’s setbacks?" If the answer is no, then change
the way you react to your children.
Have Realistic Expectations. In my career I have
seen the negative impact that unrealistic expectations have on children.
As I noted in the five articles I wrote for my website last spring pertaining
to the temperamental differences in children, our expectations for our
children must be based upon their particular temperament and learning
styles. For example, I worked with a family whose nine-year-old son had
difficulty with attention and learning. Although the parents said they
understood the nature of his problems, they did not respond as if they
did. Instead, they felt that if he studied more and was more consistent
his grades would be better.
However, this child was already expending much energy in
learning and was mentally exhausted. His parents’ expectations that
he could complete as much work as his peers was unrealistic given his
learning problems. Instead of offering support, their frustration as well
as their belief that he was not trying hard enough led them to punish
him for his mistakes on spelling and math tests. In response this boy
became increasingly angry and resentful and felt there was nothing he
could do to please his parents.
Relatedly, we must be careful that our expectations do not place children
in situations where the likely outcome is failure. We can advise children
they will learn from mistakes. However, if they constantly make mistakes
and do not experience success because we do not take into consideration
their unique temperament and learning style, they will begin to flee from
those tasks that they perceive as leading to failure. As one boy poignantly
told me, "If you’re supposed to learn from your mistakes then
I should be a genius since I have made so many."
Prepare Your Children for Mistakes. I believe that parents can
prepare their children for the possibility that mistakes will occur, thereby
lessening fears associated with possible setbacks. This can be accomplished
with carefully selected comments at carefully selected times. Several
examples were offered earlier in this article such as the father who showed
his son a videotape of himself falling numerous times as he learned to
ride a two-wheel bike or the child whose parents said it’s not the
end of the world if we try something and it doesn’t work.
Preparing children for mistakes should not be confused with introducing
a self-fulfilling prophecy for failure. What will insure that it is not
experienced as a self-fulfilling prophecy for failure are our comments
that if things do not work out there are other strategies we can use.
Thus, our children hear the message that many possibilities exist for
reaching our goals.
In summary, we can adopt a problem-solving approach with our children
in which we convey the belief that all children will make mistakes whether
on a test, in a sporting event, in a play, or in building a model. In
a low-keyed manner we can communicate that when setbacks occur, we can
figure out what will help to correct them. We can also offer realistic
hope by articulating the belief that a task that is too difficult at this
point may not present as great an obstacle in the future.
Children who are not paralyzed by the fear of making mistakes or failing
are the youngsters who will grow up willing to take appropriate risks
and willing to confront challenges. They will experience many opportunities
to enjoy life rather than spending most of their time and energy running
from possible failure. If we as adults are to help children develop this
positive outlook, we must possess a healthy attitude about making mistakes.
In my next newsletter I will discuss what we can do as adults to develop
a positive mindset about the role of mistakes in our own lives.
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