Learning to Fail

Our church is doing a special class for parents on Sunday mornings. It's called Teaching Your Children to Mind Without Losing Yours. So far we've only had one class and it was the introduction of the series, but an interesting thought was brought up that I thought I'd pass along.

We need to teach our children how to fail. If they can't learn how to fail and move on in our homes, where it's safe, then where will they? In the video series, Kevin Lehman uses the example of spilled orange juice. When the orange juice is spilled you teach them how to handle their failure ... do you hand them a rag (which is all they really need) or do you clean it up for them while yelling/lecturing them about not being careful? Which one will actually teach them how to handle failure?

I love that idea ... it's in my home that Kairi and Alex are going to learn how to deal w/ the rest of the world. I want to teach them that when you mess up, you clean up your mess, apologize, and move on. Don't dwell on your mistakes, but do learn from them. Don't avoid things just to avoid failure (don't refuse to get the oj out of the fridge b/c you're afraid of spilling it), but instead learn to deal with the mess when it happens.

This thought was really revolutionary to me, although it seems like something that should be common sense. I hope to start looking for the areas in my relationship with my children where I can teach them to fail, instead of overreacting about something minor.


I'm really excited about the rest of this series!