The Gift of Failure

"The setbacks, mistakes, miscalculations, and failures we have shoved out of our children's way are the very experiences that teach them how to be resourceful, persistent, innovative, and resilient citizens of the world."
- Jessica Lahey, The Gift of Failure


The Real F Word

What do you imagine when you think about failing? Perhaps missing a game-winning shot? Or maybe disappointing your parents or spouse? Losing a client at work? Usually memories of failure are painful ones, filled with shame and regret. Oxford Dictionary defines failure as “lack of success,” but it seems that failure carries much more emotional weight. Being “unsuccessful” seems to say something about the kind of performer you are, but being a failure seems to say something about the kind of person you are.

So what kind of people are we? Well, when our vision of who we are is wrapped up in the things we do, it can be easy to allow the disappointment of failure to be absorbed into our identity. And in a world that lauds success and accomplishment, young people seem to have to keep more and more kinds of failure at bay.

In this guide, we seek to understand what teens are really afraid of, how to parent through failure with grace, and, in a culture that sees through a success/failure lens, how to emphasize faithfulness and honesty.

Why are we so afraid of failure?
In the US, our relationship with failure is complicated. We tend to have three responses to it. First, Gene Kranz’ famous words about the Apollo 13 mission, “Failure is not an option,” have become somewhat of a cultural anthem: Avoid failure at all costs. Second, perhaps because we recognize that failure is inevitable, we minimize its importance and impact and instead consider it humorous, as evidenced by the continuous, exceeding popularity of YouTube fail videos. And third, thanks to narratives about how some of America’s most admired people (e.g. Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates) experienced some sort of “failure” that eventually spurred them on to achieve massive success, we try to minimize its impact, saying that failure is simply a speed bump on the road to our dreams. These famous failures highlight our belief that everything will fall into place if you only try hard enough.

Recap -
•Failure is a necessary and important part of the teenage experience.
•It’s likely that success looks very different to your teen than it does to you.
•Remember, your teen’s fear is a tender and holy place. Opening up to you might be hard for them.
•Our teens need to be given opportunities to take risks and to fail.
•Remember that not every mistake is moral, nor the end of the world.
•It may be worth reconsidering what we reward.
•It can be important to let your teen learn from life’s consequences themselves, rather than sheltering them from them.
•Your teens need to see you being upfront about your failures before they will be willing to be honest about theirs.
•We may need to offer an apology if we’ve created an environment in which our teens don’t feel that they can be honest.
•We all have the capacity and the calling to offer grace.

You can get the full guide for only $3.99! See link.