You Celebrate Your Kids’ Wins. But Do You Celebrate the Fails, Too?
It’s natural to be proud of your child’s successes in school, on the sports’ field, or in the performing arts. But what about celebrating when your child fails? Research shows that praising mistakes can have just as much of an impact on development as praising success.
Why It’s Important to Celebrate Failing
Celebrating mistakes can have multiple benefits for your child’s development. When your child sees that their effort is being noticed, even if the effort did not result in success, it can help to:
- Build Confidence: Mistakes are part of learning and kids need to know that it’s okay to make them. By celebrating mistakes your kid understands that it’s not the end of the world if they don’t get something right right away, and that it’s all part of the learning process.
- Teach Persistence: Celebrating mistakes motivates your kid to try again – to persist in the face of failure. Your celebration will encourage them to keep going until they get a result that they can be proud of.
- Grow Creativity: By celebrating mistakes, you are helping to foster a creative spirit in your child. Mistakes are an essential part of the creative process and need to be embraced and encouraged instead of shied away from.
Tips for Celebrating Mistakes
Celebrating mistakes is all about turning failure into success. Here are a few tips for doing so:
- Take the time to talk about mistakes with your child. Listen to their frustration and help them brainstorm creative solutions to the problem at hand.
- Make sure you don’t get too caught up in the mistake. Encourage your child but also explain that everybody experiences failure sometimes, and to use it as an opportunity to look at the situation from a different perspective.
- Give your child positive reinforcement and be sure to remind them that you’re proud of them, no matter the outcome.
- Recognize and reward effort as much as achievement. Little rewards for little steps along the way will also help keep them motivated and enthusiastic.
Takeaway
Teaching kids how to deal with failure and mistakes is an essential life skill and it starts in the home. Celebrating mistakes can help your child to develop confidence, persistence and creativity. So don’t be afraid to praise failures as well as successes!
