Unison Parenting #4: Teaching Your Kids About Failure

“But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded” (2 Chronicles 15:7 NIV).

Basketball superstar Michael Jordan famously said, “I’ve missed more than nine thousand shots in my career. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Tennis legend Roger Federer said in a Dartmouth commencement address, “In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80%. What percentage of points do you think I won in those matches? Only 54%. In other words, even top-ranked tennis players win barely more than half of the points … Whatever game you play in life, you’re going to lose a point, a match, a season, a job … You want to become a master at overcoming hard moments.”

Resilience is such a vital quality in your child. It’s cliché, but true, that one must make lemonade out of life’s lemons. How can we teach children to respond well to failure?

It’s foundational to teach them that they are a child of God, loved by God no matter what, and also loved unconditionally by their parents.

Then let them fail so they understand failure; don’t be a helicopter or lawnmower parent trying to amend every situation. My wife and I learned during a parent-teacher conference that our second grader would receive a low grade on their report card for not turning in work. We said, “OK.” The stunned teacher said, “Every other parent argues when I give a bad grade.” We replied, “We believe in our child learning from the consequences of their actions.”

Grow a child’s decision-making incrementally as they age, allowing low-consequence failures. A child staying up late at a sleepover will learn the next morning at the 8:00 game that they feel sluggish and perform poorly. Unless it’s the playoffs (help the coach out!), allowing this mistake will make them more responsible the next time, believe me.

I’ve known young adults who lost composure at the first sign of failure because they had never experienced it. Don’t let your child be one of them.