When their teens fail, there’s nothing most parents want more than to pick up the pieces and make everything better.
Chances are they’re already working tirelessly to help their teens keep their plates spinning, preventing their teens from failing in the first place.
While these are certainly noble intentions, it’s important for parents of teenagers to know that it is absolutely okay for teens to fail.
In fact, failure can be a necessary building block for teens to develop their resilience and independence.
While no parent wants their teen to get benched during a basketball game or get a poor grade on a math test, these types of failures can be beneficial, and they should not be prevented.
Here are a few reasons why it is okay for your teen to fail:
Failing helps teens learn from their mistakes
Some lessons are best taught through improving upon a series of failures.
Say your teen is trying to learn to play a complicated piece on their cello, for example. It may take several hours and countless missteps for them to succeed. Along the way, every single note they played out of time or out of tune allows them to see exactly what they need to do differently to play the piece correctly next time. If you were to allow them to give up so that they didn’t feel discouraged by their mistakes, they would never learn how to play a challenging piece that will make them feel proud and accomplished.
We owe many of our greatest inventions to brilliant minds who were willing to fail time and time again and to learn from their failures until they happened upon something great.
Give your teen the same opportunity to learn from their mistakes, too.
When your teen gets a poor grade on a math test, encourage them to review their mistakes and improve their study habits. If your teen is benched during a game, encourage them to spend extra time practicing the plays that they didn’t quite understand the first time around.
This will help your teen learn and grow over time.
Failing helps teens become independent
If you’re always there to swoop in and save the day before your teen makes a mistake, they will never learn how to prevent themselves from making these mistakes on their own.
For instance, if you are always checking your teen’s gym bag to make sure they packed their cleats and sticking their cleats in the bag when they do forget, they will never come up with their own system to help themselves remember.
If you’re always reminding your teen when they have tests coming up in their classes, they will not see the importance of creating their own organizer or calendar to keep track of their own work.
Your teen won’t be under your wing forever. Allow them the chance to become more independent now while you’re still around to help them if they need your assistance.
Failing helps teens develop resilience
Every single adult on this earth has failed at something or another at least once in their life. However, while we all inevitably experience failure, our responses to our failures can be vastly different.
People who have experienced failures before and have developed a growth mindset tend to be resilient when faced with failure. They don’t throw in the towel just because they didn’t succeed the first time around. They try again and again until they succeed.
On the other hand, people who have been shielded from failure for most of their lives tend to have a hard time when they experience failure in adulthood. They aren’t always equipped to respond well to setbacks, and they may be tempted to give in to a fixed mindset if they aren’t able to achieve a goal the first time around.
By allowing your teen to fail at smaller things, you are helping them build resilience for the future.
For example, instead of calling the soccer coach upset when your teen is told they can’t start during the next game, help your teen put in extra hours of practice after school so that they can address their weaknesses and earn a starting spot in the future.
Failure is uncomfortable, and no one wants to experience it in life. However, you are not doing your child any favors by trying to protect them from failing. By accepting that it is okay for your teen to fail, you are setting them up for a future where they are more resilient, independent, and willing to learn.
