Seeing Failure as a Learning Opportunity - A Vital Lesson for Kids
posted on Nov 16, 2023
Gurukul The School, a top ranking school in Ghaziabad, we firmly believe that the need of the hour is to revisit this thinking and misconception only to put things into perspective.
Life's two most significant events are wins and failures. If you see, life gives each of us a fair share of wins and failures. What we do is celebrate our wins and detest failures. That’s because, in our minds, it has been inscribed for years that it is good to win and bad to fail. This is exactly why we end up detesting failure. Not to forget the fact that a lot of negativity and judgment is associated with the word failure. And no, not just children but adults too hesitate to come out about their failures.
At Gurukul The School, a top ranking school in Ghaziabad, we firmly believe that the need of the hour is to revisit this thinking and misconception only to put things into perspective. The decade-old stigma associated with failures needs to end. That's exactly what we are attempting to break. We wish for all the children to amend their perceptions and see failures as nothing but learning lessons. Lessons that equip them and make them more capable of taking over their present and the future.
Here is how we at our school are doing it, and you can too, simply by seeing failure from a different lens altogether.
At Gurukul The School, we have been witness to multiple situations wherein the smallest of failures have led children to go into a shell of isolation and disconnect. Most of this comes from heavy emotions associated with failure, such as the likes of shame, regret, and guilt.
This is where a transformation is required to redefine failure as a stepping-stone to new learnings – something that can help shape children's present and future, something that can help them see the best within.
After all, failure is not permanent. At any given time, it can be reversed. However, this is not something children will understand or assume overnight. This calls for persistent yet patient explanations.
- Failure Teaches Patience and Resilience
If you want your children to succeed in life, it is important that you teach them important life traits such as patience and resilience. They need to realize nothing comes easy in life. One must give different aspects of life, time, and effort to come out strong.
Failure instills these traits in children because only when one fails does one continue to give time and effort towards reversing failure, in the course of which patience and resilience are learned. This again proves that failure need not always be viewed as critical.
- Failure as a Corrective Mechanism
Many times, children end up seeing failure as the end. This is where their immediate adults, be it the parents, guardians, teachers, or caretakers, need to step in to guide them through and show them the right path.
It is vital that children are made to understand that when one method fails, it isn't because they are incapable of achieving greater heights; it's just because there's some other method that is more effective in nature.
Failure helps with getting access to these other methods and ultimately guides with applying the most effective solution. You can only imagine the quantum of learning children grasp in this phase. The mere thought that failures put people in corrective mode to come back stronger sounds impactful in itself.
- Failure Lays the Ground for Introspection:
We will now talk about another vital yet less talked about outcome of failure, which is introspection.
Every time a child fails, it becomes necessary to sow the seeds of introspection. This is because introspection allows children to self-assess themselves, in the course of which children end up taking away crucial learnings, such as the need for introspection, steadiness, and taking baby steps.
If there was no failure, there might be no introspection. We at Gurukul The School, a top schools in Ghaziabad, firmly believe that this is something children should be exposed to so that they come out stronger.
- Failure is About You, Not Others
Speaking about seeing failure as a learning lesson, one must never view failure in comparison with others.
For instance, XYZEE ranked 1st in class, so by ranking 2nd, I failed to top the class. This should never be your thought process. Instead, you must say, I gave my best shot, and I am proud to have ranked second. Next time, I'll work harder and try to top the class. Now, that's a learning in itself. A failure-induced learning.
Summing Up:
All this while, if you as a parent have been feeding your child that it's not right to fail, you will have to change your narrative. Tell your child a new story. Let your child know that trying > winning. It's okay to try and fail instead of not trying at all.
Put the above school of thought into play, and your child will no longer be afraid of failures. In fact, he/she will end up drawing important lessons from these failures. Go ahead; we at Gurukul The School are cheering for you!