Let Them Fail

Drew is fired up because he just finished putting
that "big boy" puzzle together "all by himself" (almost).

I am still pretty new at being a parent. Drew is my oldest child, and he just turned three a couple months ago. The last three years have been a crash course in parenthood. Every day I learn something new, and every day I realize more and more just how important his mother and I are to his overall development. That responsibility weighs heavily on me.

I love my son, and I want him to experience the absolute best things that life has to offer. Just like every other parent out there, I want him to be successful at everything he does, and as I sat at the kitchen table with him tonight while he worked on his puzzle, I wrestled with a very tough thought:

No matter how much I want him to succeed, there is no way I can guarantee his lifelong success or happiness.

How'd we go from the simple, joyful task of putting together a puzzle to dwelling on such a great dilemma? Stuff like this happens to me all of the time. I usually blame it on having ADD, but tonight I blame it on the school bus.

In the middle of the puzzle there is a big, yellow bus. Drew was looking for the piece that would complete the bus. He's looking all over the table, "hmmm... hmmm... I can't find it... hmmm..." Meanwhile, I'm sitting in my seat staring right at it. It's right there on top of that stack of puzzle pieces. Surely he's seen it. His eyes have passed over it no less than four times (I'm pretty sure he gets this from his Daddy).

Should I point it out to him? What if I just hand him the piece and let him put it where it goes? That's what I would have done when Drew was younger.  However, as I thought about it tonight, this quote ran through my head:

"Prepare the child for the way. Don't prepare the way for the child."

What does putting a puzzle together have to do with preparing Drew for the rest of his life? I think there are a lot of things to be learned here. The most important of which is the fact that Drew has to learn how to struggle, and he has to learn how to persevere. I could have shown him where that puzzle piece was, but then he wouldn't have gotten to experience the excitement of finding it by himself. He would not have gotten to experience the same sense of accomplishment, and selfishly, I also would have missed out on the joy of watching his reaction when he finally did it by himself.

Over the last few years, Dr. Angela Duckworth has done some great research that focuses on the traits that predict success in life. According to her research the one trait that predicts success more often than any other is "grit."

Dr. Duckworth tells us that grit is "having passion and perseverance for very long term goals... It is sticking with your future day-in and day-out... It is living life like it is a marathon and not a sprint." She says that the reason so many talented people under-perform in life is because they lack grit. When adversity hits them in the face, they give up.

In one of her "Ted Talks," Duckworth says that it takes approximately ten years to become proficient at a discipline. Along those same lines, in his best-selling book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell discusses what has become known as the "10,000-Hour Rule." According to this theory, it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at anything. 10 years?! 10,000 hours?!

As parents and educators we have a great opportunity to help prepare our kids for lifelong success by helping them develop the traits that will benefit them the most. I believe that perseverance (grit), hard work, and having a growth mindset are some of the most important and most reliable determinants of success, and these are the traits that I want to help develop in my son, my daughter, and the young people that I teach and coach every single day.

How do we nurture this development?

I think we have to let them fail from time to time, let them struggle. We have to teach them how to work hard for the things that they want, and we have to show them the satisfaction that can come from a hard day's work. We should praise them for the effort and the grit that it took to get that A+ rather than the grade itself. We have to help them understand that life isn't about instant gratification, that sometimes they are going to have to wait for the things that they want. We have to resist the urge to make excuses for them or to shift the blame on to their teachers, coaches, or some other factor when our kids were actually the ones that did not do the things necessary to be successful. If we simply model most of these things in our own lives, our children will naturally pick up on them.

Do I think we should just throw our kids into the world and tell them to start swimming before we ever teach them how to do it? Not at all. That would create what Dr. Martin Seligman would refer to as "learned helplessness," and the end results would be detrimental. They would give up before they ever got started.

I read a good book last week titled One Question by Ken Coleman, and as I write this, I am reminded of something he said in the book.

"We parents spend so much time trying to make our kids feel good that we miss opportunities to teach them how long it takes to be good."

More than anything else, I think we just need to start being more intentional about looking for and taking advantage of learning opportunities like the one I found tonight at the kitchen table. I didn't find that puzzle piece for Drew or tell him where it was. I encouraged him to keep looking for it, and when he found it, I didn't respond with "You did it!" Instead, I praised his effort. "You see what happens when you work hard and keep trying?! I knew you could do it!" I believe that there is a world of difference in those two responses, and I hope that as my wife and I continue to be intentional about what we say to our children, it will end up making a world of difference in their lives.

I'd love to hear your comments below. How do you try to nurture the development of grit and perseverance in your children and your students?

If you would like to hear more about Dr. Duckworth's research, here are two of her "Ted Talks" about "Grit." Enjoy!