Being there for your kids - Reframe Failures as Blessings in Disguise

Episode Date: July 5, 2020

Everybody who has failed, raise your hand. Yep, that's everybody. If your hand's not raised, you are lying :(  Interestingly, failure is a critical part of success. How can we know what's right, if we first don't know what's wrong? How you handle your failures provides a critical role model for your kids. How you help your kids deal with failure is a critical component in their building character. When you help them see that each failure is also a blessing in disguise, you help them build up steam to learn more.

I'm Dr. John Robinson, and this is Teachable Moments. Recently, I posted my top 10 tips for homeschooling success, whether it's just helping with homework or being a full-time homeschool teacher to your kids. Now I'm elaborating on each item on the list. Parenting tip number nine is this. Reframe failures to be also blessings in disguise. The famous inventor, Thomas Edison, tried 99 different metals and elements, failing each time, before he found tungsten for the source of light in an electric light bulb.

Talk about persistence. Instead of saying to himself, well, there's another one that doesn't work, he reframed each failure as getting him one step closer to success. An old adage is this. Get knocked down seven times. Get up eight. Each time your child gets knocked down with schoolwork, he shows endurance by getting up again. Jared got home from school, looking dejected and found his mom at the computer.

Mom noticed his mood and asked, Hey, baby, what's wrong? I just can't do it, he exploded with tears before throwing down his English essay, displaying his failing grade. Mom gathered her 10-year-old son in her arms and let him cry. Aw, you really tried hard to do the best you could.

It's disappointing when you don't get the good grade you expect. She's just mean, Mama, he whimpered into her shoulder. Jared's mom let him vent for a while, active listening his feelings. As he settled down, she asked, hey, let's sit down for a while. I'll get you a soda and snack, and let's see how you can fix up this essay to get a better grade for the next one. Kids can wallow in self-pity for a long time if we let them. After they've gotten it all out, redirect them to a more positive approach to learning. When failures are framed as blessings in disguise, there is always hope. When I was at Wake Forest University, way back in the day, my freshman English teacher gave two grades for each assignment,

the first for content and the second for grammar. At first, I frequently got A's over F's. As he proofed each paper, he put the grammar error listed in the margins for us to look up and correct. We then turned in our papers for the final grade for that paper, errors corrected. If I had just gotten one grade for each paper covering both content and grammar, I would have accepted that grade with that question. By giving us two grades, I was motivated to improve my grade by correcting my grammar errors. what would have been a failure turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

As we shepherd our children through childhood, each moment is teachable, a learning opportunity. All children, and adults, for that matter, fail at one time or another. It's what we do with that failure that defines character. It's not a curse, but a blessing. It's not a failure, but another opportunity to learn more. Mistakes are our best teachers if we see the opportunity and the blessing. I'm Dr. Jonathan C. Robinson, licensed clinical psychologist, and Christian author of Teachable Moments,

Building Blocks of Christian Parenting, and this has been Teachable Moments. Teachable Moments, Building Blocks of Christian Parenting, is available online at AmazonBooks.com and in local and national bookstores. More on Dr. Robinson at TMC-P-I-N-C.com.