Why Teaching Kids Resilience Through Failure is Key To Their Growth

At most any job you are supported and rewarded for doing the same task over and over again; you get the promotion because of your experience. Why is this? Because the default attitude of most people in charge is to avoid failure. People who are in charge didn’t get there because they took chances and made mistakes, they got there by doing the same thing over and over again; demonstrating competence.

The education system’s job is to pump out people who can quickly come into the workplace and do the job they are being hired to do; without making mistakes. And this mentality is ingrained into people the moment they step into school; which is a problem.

Below Ana Lorena Fabrega talks about how fear of failure makes kids risk averse:

https://twitter.com/InfiniteL88ps/status/1465013626457112577

Failure is a vehicle for learning

I went to a Montessori school in preschool. They taught me to learn through play and experimentation; the antidote to fear of being wrong. From then on I never once had fear of failure in my life; to this day I still play and experiment because it’s fun and engaging.

Though my experience at Montessori is unique to me, it shaped my life so much that I had trouble adjusting to “normal school”; but I never gave in!

When you lead children to believe that failure is detrimental, they become adults too early. Programming a fear of failure and the idea that there is just one correct answer leads to uncreative, uncurious, risk-averse people. Society needs to instill different beliefs through our educational system and encourage looking at failures as learning opportunities.

Failure is a vehicle for learning. Failure is a willingness to take risks. Those that grow from the experience see failure as an opportunity for learning. Teaching kids of all backgrounds resilience through failure is key.


Bottom line: Failure teaches you everything, it humbles you. Those that fail are the ones who don’t learn from their mistakes and stop trying.