FAILURE - IT REALLY IS OKAY!

Miss Crazy didn't want to do her nightly reading race assignment and boy did she throw a fit about it. You know one of those fits where you hope the neighbors suddenly put earplugs in right before the tantrum began. After the start she had in school, I often worry about whether she is being pushed too hard. When she entered Kindergarten she didn't recognize all of her ABC's and couldn't count above 15. By the third month of school she was in advanced math and reading.  Next week she starts 2nd grade math and is only 1/2 way through first grade. Sometimes I think the schools are pushing the kids too hard, I mean this is nothing like what I learned in Kindergarten, hell, it isn't even close to what The Senior and Freshman learned their first year in school.  But in this case I don't think she is being pushed too far (although it always enters my mind when stuff like this happens) This particular incident was a classic case of the computer being too inviting before homework was done.  We can deal with that!  And of course, knowing how my mind works, this started me thinking of the bigger picture (not to mention The Shooter and I having this conversation just the other day and him mentioning that I should write a blog about it)

Are we sometimes pushing our kids too far? Do we expect too much of them? And I'm not talking about what schools teach either.  I'm talking about the mentality that you MUST get straight A's, you MUST win every contest, you MUST be the best at your sport. If the child has never failed before, what will happen when they finally run into that big wall of failure that is bound to pop up in front of them someday. What happens when they get that one college professor who doesn't dole out A's easily or what happens when the new kid moves to town who has been playing the sport longer and does it better.

As a child, disappointing your parents can be a huge deal and as you get older, that moves on to bosses, significant others, peers and sometimes even strangers. Am I saying we should just let our kids fail left and right and not even get them to try?  No, definitely not! We need to let them know that we expect them to do their best and try their hardest but that it is okay to fail sometimes.  After all, failure is the stepping stone to success. We MUST know how to fail in order to truly succeed and be happy with that success. 

Not to mention how failure can affect people sometimes.  Someone I used to know was popular, athletic, got straight A's and then she went to college. While there, she suddenly couldn't make the team, get the popular guys and A's were harder to come by.  She married the first guy who came along, gave up on her educational/professional dreams and got involved with some less than stellar people...all because she had never failed before and thought that life was going to be a bunch of successes.  Luckily the same parents who pushed her too hard realized what they had done and helped her pull out of the bad places she went.  She now has a new husband, wonderful kids and a great career, although not the one she had dreamed of. She once told some former classmates that she wished she had failed just once as a child.

While doing research for a paper, the Senior read about a man who had so much pressure from his family to be the best academically that when he didn't receive one academic achievement at the end of his school career he killed seven people and himself. I couldn't imagine being that upset over something like that.  But as a child I was taught to do my best and if I failed, I picked myself back up and tried again.  I truly believe that taught me how to function in this life. I fail everyday (especially physically) but I keep getting up and trying again and guess what, I'm not afraid to fail and I am very happy when I succeed. I have a good life.

Until next time...If your child doesn't get an A in that one class, remember that it is okay. Teach your children that failure just happens sometimes and it will only serve to make them better people. The Shooter always likes to say that the only time in his life that failure wasn't an option was in the military when he was dealing with firearms and explosives. Yeah, I can see that. :)