Dear Baby Girl,
We love you. Now, fail. Do I have your attention? We love you. Now, fail. You may be shaking your head at me, but I’m serious. We love you. We love you so much that we want you to fail. Can you believe it?!? I know. I know. I know that our approach goes against everything that the world teaches, but we are the type of parents who want to see you fail. And, we are intentional in our belief and approach. Now, do it. We double-dog dare you to fail. I know that you are scratching your head right now, really wondering if you have our permission to really fail. Absolutely – you’ve got it! We embrace failure for so many reasons, and we want you to really understand why.
You are not your failure. You are so much more – so much better – than your current failure, and we want you to know that.
You are not meant to be perfect; in fact, you are built to fail. Only Jesus is perfect, and we want you to remember that in your weakness, Christ is made strong; that in your failure, you a still a beautiful child of God; that in your mistakes, you receive endless love and grace; that if we, as your parents, always come to your rescue when you fail, you may begin to rely on us, instead of Christ. In your failure, we want you to build a beautiful relationship with Christ where you gain your strength.
We have a growth mindset in our household. Here’s why, and I’m about to get all scientific on you. The scientific research shows that when you fail, your brain gets stronger! You are meant to fail. In fact, when you fail and correct your mistakes, your brain builds new pathways and gets stronger as a result. The research is there. Go find it and read it.
Failure doesn’t mean that you are dumb. Failure can mean that you need to work harder, organize better, or pursue the help that you need. We won’t know what you are capable of unless we let you work autonomously with the possibility of success or the possibility of failure. Does it mean that you are completely on your own? Nope, not at all. In fact, we put parameters and boundaries in place so that you may succeed. But, you must do the work because the success, failure, and consequences are yours to own so that you can learn to experience life to the fullest as God intends for you. I want you to experience the true joy that comes from working hard for YOUR success – not ours – and, we know that, as your parents, we must take a step back for you to tackle the world through a reliance on a faithful God, loving and wise family, and wise friends.
In our household, we believe that if you can do it for yourself, you should try to do it for yourself. We stopped talking to your teachers about grades in 4th grade. We did it because we wanted you to learn how to do it for yourself, and after several years of talking, you are getting really good at it. (Yes, we help you with how to approach your teachers and what to say, but you are doing all of the communicating. WTG!)
In our household, we have decided that grades will not be the indication of learning or growth. What did this mean for us? Well, we stopped looking at the website where grades are posted, and we stopped looking at the papers when they were sent home. For our family, I think this has been one of the best decisions that we have ever made. It changed our family completely in a way that is hard to explain. We are less stressed as a family as we put our priorities elsewhere, and you are more willing to work independently and harder, knowing that grades are not the end-all, be-all when it comes to learning. And! Bonus!! Your grades haven’t changed. We removed the stress, and your grades are still the same. That’s a win in our book!
We let you fail with grades because we really want you to understand how grade point averages work.
We believe that failure leads to success – that the drive for success is intrinsic, that it ultimately comes from within, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as you figure out who God intends for you to be. We want to nurture the drive for success by focusing on your strengths – your God-given talents – while we help you strengthen your weaknesses.
Some of the greatest minds and talents EVER were complete failures until they succeeded. Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Cher, Tom Cruise, Richard Branson, Steven Spielberg, Mohammed Ali, Pablo Picasso, Bill Gates, Nolan Ryan, and many more. You are in good company when you fail, and we know that the next failure draws you closer to your next success.
As Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” And, this! “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
Now, fail. I double-dog dare ya. We love you that much.
LOL interesting take on life and I do believe that you learn more from failure than you do from successes. Here is an example. I once was brought in to take a look at a system that was constantly failing. Everyone had an opinion as to why it was failing. However how do you know what was the real reason. I wanted to see the system fail itself so I can have a better understanding (not the best way to prove oneself to people by wanting something to fail). However, watching it fail allowed me to determine exactly what was going on and correct the issue. We then had 99.9% uptime after that 🙂
I truly believe that failure makes you stronger as it makes you realize what “not” to do and that should always be part of the learning experience. If you constantly have successes, you dont learn that.
Here is where there may be an issue with allowing someone to fail. A person can learn about “what not to do” so they dont fail by not failing. Having a mentor for example can help that (and that could be a friend, a co-worker, even a parent). So what I ask you, is allowing “baby girl” to fail prevent her from other opportunities that would even enrich her knowledge even more (ex: getting into an advanced class, winning an award, getting chosen for something).?
Excellent question, Rudy! We have high expectations, but she is navigating the ship. We used to push, but we found that when we pushed too hard, we were all miserable. So, we made a conscious decision to parent in a different way. We don’t sweat it when she fails, and we let her own her failure. She knows that Mom and Dad are going to let her suffer the consequences of her actions, so she has stepped up to the plate because she wants to succeed for herself, not because she fears what will happen if she fails. We did it as an experiment, and it has worked better than we could have expected. Her grades are as good, if not better than they were before, and we are really proud of how she has grown in character. I recognize that our approach may not work for everyone, but it works for our family.
As I recently told Ali, I want you to experience life in your own way — not the way I tell you to. Then I apologized to her for burdening her with my expectations.
Don’t beat yourself up, Trish. Most days I feel like I’m in Parenting 101 as we try to figure out what works best for our kid.
Expectations are important, Trish, because they encourage us to rise to the moment. Hang in there! You are doing it right.
I love this!!! Was just speaking the same thing yesterday to a friend and find it so important as my own child struggles with dissapointing and failing that he learns mistakes are a part of all of us. If we live authentically we all fail and then become stronger better people than we were before. Thanks Deb for an inspiring message!
Brandy, thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts. Be encouraged today. You are not alone. Watching your child fail is hard – really hard. I know. There are days when I just want to fix it just to avoid the struggle. I get it. But, the reward – the prize – as we all work with the future, not moment, in mind causes us as parents to focus as much on character development as knowledge. Hang in there!