Recently
the board results were announced in India and my social media updates have been
brimming with the stories about all the winners – interviews with them and
their families on how they achieved success. A 22 year old Delhi girl in India,
has recently cracked the Union Public Service Commission exam in the first
attempt and there have been tons of articles on “How to achieve success”.
While, I appreciate and marvel these winning kids, but can’t help but think
about the kids who did not do so well – the back-benchers, the less favorites,
the average scorers? A child who secured 70% or lesser grades may have a better
understanding of a few subjects than all and the ones who score 99% who may just be
able to memorize well. But do we ever think like that?
Failure is agonizing.
But it’s not as painful as watching your kid fail. It’s not just that parents
are naturally automated to care about them. We surely want them to be
successful, partially so they have a great life and partially because, honestly,
their accomplishments echoes well on us.
I know of several
parents ( in my own social circle) who go great lengths to make sure their
child excels in everything – sport, studies, extra-curricular activities –
almost everything! A mother I know has even beaten her child for not being able
to write (at the age of 4+) because the mother’s life constantly revolves
around competing with fellow kids. That
was an extreme case, but a common one with many parents I know, but I can’t
help but wonder that as parents gradually navigate their kids’ lives so that
they evade failure, those kids lose a significant life skill, and one they will
certainly require later: how to discover the courage and inspiration to recoup
and get up again. So how do you help your children fail, or rather, how do you
help your children cope with failure?
I noticed a few months ago that my 5 year old son was
getting very used to things going his way - and devoid of adequate effort on
his part. There were some sulky moments even when I cycled home faster than
him. Other days, it was some other form of a race, which he would be losing. Some
of this is age, some of this is situation, and some of it may just be fluke. As
much as I love seeing him prosper and thrive in all he attempts, I became a
little anxious at times. He was getting very smug and blasé about various accomplishments.
He had started to develop a bit of an overfed ego. He evidently needed bigger
challenges. As it occurred, I had a frequently arranged meeting with his kindergarten
teacher, and brought this up. She told me that boys, in general have this “urge
to win” more than girls (driven by her years of experience with children). We decided
that challenging my son a little more in some other areas would be apposite -
that possibly having to work a little harder in few other areas could help his complete
outlook. While we would never set him up to fail deliberately, if, in these bigger
challenges, he failed in some way, it possibly would be a "good"
thing - good for him to comprehend that one can't always get what they want,
good for him to have to attempt a little harder to be successful, and good for
him to value the successes he has had - and we would let it to happen rather
than intrude.
We worked on ways for him to deal with this constant
pressure of winning. To my surprise, his teacher recently informed me how when
other kids in the kindergarten were instigating each other about how they came “first
in drinking water”, when my son coolly retorts – “Okay! Ich genieße mein Wasser” (its fine. I am enjoying my water”).
Made me smile a bit. Getting kids to cast themselves in their own story
helps kids remember what they contemplate success and prompts them what their goals
are. We don’t want to be victims in the narrative. We don’t even want to be
heroes in a narratives. We want to be
the writer of the story. And we can’t do that lest we own the story and dig
into it.
Childhood drifts away rapidly. We do our children a huge disfavor
when we don’t provide them with the sensitive, psychological and physical liberty
to simply be kids; prospective grown-ups with training wheels. Several children
today are growing up feeling the persistent force to excel. No wonder that by the
time many are in their teenage years, they choose to give up on sports all
together rather than risk the humiliating verdict of over bearing, insecure and
self-doubting parents who need to prove themselves through their children.
Which is why as parents we need to motivate our children to play for the sake of
playing and learn for the sake of learning, not for the sake of the applause it
may bring along.
I believe
that the most prosperous grown-ups are seldom those whose childhoods were one
long twine of triumphs, awards and highest scores. Rather they’re people who’ve
had their share of failures, wounds and combats along their trail to adulthood.
They’ve discovered that failure is an experience not a person, have put up the gravel
and self-assurance to follow aspiring goals that motivate them. They are sure competitive
and play to win, but results don’t define them. Their scores don’t define them.
They define themselves.
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