Maybe your child didn’t make the soccer team or failed their first test. Perhaps they didn’t get the lead role in the school play or maybe a Lego project just didn’t turn out as they’d dreamed.
When children struggle to achieve a set goal, or a situation doesn’t meet their (perhaps unrealistic) expectations, they can feel a sense of failure.
Often, a visit to a therapist’s office may result from “both the failure itself but also the response to the failure,” says Dr. Ashok Shimoji-Krishnan, a child and adolescent psychiatrist with Kaiser Permanente.
A poor response to failure can manifest as a blow to self-esteem or identity, or trigger ongoing emotional distress. Children can feel disappointed, depressed, embarrassed, angry, or all of the above. At its worst, failure can lead to overgeneralizing: a failed test can turn into “I’m bad at math,” or worse, “I’m bad at everything.”
As a parent, your first instinct may be to swoop in and save the day or tell them they’ll make the team or get the lead next time, just to prevent more tears. Yet, as it turns out, “how you respond to failure is where the real opportunity lies,” for the child and the parent alike, according to Shimoji-Krishnan.
Healthy responses to failure build future success
When children don’t succeed at something, they can learn problem-solving, coping skills and emotional resilience. If failure is treated as a chance to grow, it becomes a routine part of learning rather than a wholly negative experience.
After all, even toddlers learn from failure by trying new things. In essence, a toddler’s first halting steps also help create a critical-thinking process: “Why didn’t that work? What is my hypothesis? What might work better?” Shimoji-Krishnan says.
“When you learn that failing is okay, that it’s part of the process, you learn that failure is not only accepted, but an expected part of growing and learning. It’s an essential way to get better at the things we do,” he says.
First, acknowledge the feelings
“When something falls through, first acknowledge and validate your child’s response, whatever it is. You want to provide guidance as an open and honest communicator, rather than getting angry, rushing to reassure, or giving unwanted advice,” says Shimoji-Krishnan.
Take a few minutes to listen without offering solutions, alternatives or other framing. If your child doesn’t want to talk about it, check back in a day or two. It’s emotional first aid that can be easy to miss in the moment.
“Some parents may need to work on their responses to their child’s failures, to avoid blasting them for not succeeding,” says the psychiatrist. If the reaction is primarily negative, children can worry about disappointing a parent if they don’t succeed, which can lead to anxiety, withdrawal or avoidance.
Build a better relationship with failure
Once you’re comfortable addressing the disappointment, try these strategies.
- Normalize fails by sharing your own. Tell your own athletic and academic flops to show that experience isn’t unique or shameful. “It lets kids know they’re not unique but normal. People fail and know they can reach out to someone who understands,” Shimoji-Krishnan says.
- Help set realistic expectations. Check in and ask your child how they expect any new situation to go. Most of the time, they’ll have no idea, but others may have an unrealistic idea of first-time success.
- “Kids are going to fail at something, because they’re not perfect at everything,” he says. “Kids who learn to take new risks build resilience for the work and effort that results in success.”
- Stretch them into weak spots. Deliberately placing a strong kid in something they’re not good at – such as sports for an academically-inclined child – builds resilience through low-stakes experiences. You’re establishing a range of experiences, not intentionally trying to manufacture failure within safe boundaries.
- Check in as they struggle with their situation. You want children to come up with ideas for why failure might have happened and how to tackle those problems in the future. Build your child’s autonomy and their belief in their capacity to try new things, fail and try again.
“They get to expand their brain and muscles in different ways and use that plasticity to try new things and fail in different ways, building resilience to wonder, ‘How do I make it better?’” he says.
If your child is struggling with school assignments, you can suggest a conversation with the teacher. Older children can speak directly with the teacher to ask how they can improve their grades. By college age, you want them to have the confidence and ability to connect with the professor on their own, without your help.
“It’s not unique to fail, but it’s how we respond to failure that defines whether that was truly a failure or not,” he says. “You can stumble at a marathon and stop running, or you can get back up and keep going.”
