The Importance of Making Mistakes
Helping Kids Learn from Failure
Dec 19, 2007 Theresa Willingham
Thomas Edison's unparalleled success as an American inventor was not without its failures. As a matter of fact, before making the first successful light bulb, he made several thousand unsuccessful ones. Queried later by a reporter about his many failures, Edison is said to have replied, "I have not failed. I've discovered ten thousand ways which don't work." (Alina Tugend, in "The Many Errors in Thinking About Mistakes" New York Times, Nov. 2007.)
The Importance of Failure
Understandably, mistakes are often frowned upon. You don't want doctors making mistakes treating illness, or engineers fudging on bridge designs or vehicle safety. When children get answers wrong on tests or quizzes, their grades suffer commensurately, as they should. Of course, at the most basic level, pure and simple, no one likes to be wrong.
As Edison showed, though, failure is integral to success. Without error, most of modern society and almost all of contemporary knowledge would not exist. Without mistakes, we would have no Frisbees, X-Rays, Post-It Notes, penicillin, potato chips, Silly Putty, microwave ovens or the venerable light bulb. Without error, we would have no way to judge right from wrong, correct from incorrect, or, of course, even success.
Embracing Mistakes
Dr. Elisa Medhus, author of Raising Children Who Think for Themselves (Beyond Words, 2001), cites "fear of failure" as the main reason children have difficulty making decisions, and why they may come to rely on or conform to others' decisions.
She says, "Unless we teach our children how to embrace mistakes and defeats, our self-confident little dynamo may learn to fear ridicule and reprimand. Eventually, he may even rely on outside evaluation to assess his own performance, measure his self-worth, and shape his future choices. "
Fortunately, the cure for being wrong is simple and parents can set a good example by applying it: Admit you're wrong.
Error is the springboard to discovery and invention only if we honestly explore what went wrong, make an effort to find the right answer, or use the new information from the mistake to create something better.
Making the Most of Errors
Medhus identifies some "defeat recovery skills" we can teach our children. Among them:
- Instead of admonishing yourself openly for a mistake, identify possible solutions and what you learned: “Oops, I burned the mashed potatoes again. I’ll wash out this pan and start all over again. I guess I shouldn’t try to cook and read a book at the same time!”
- Avoid bringing up past mistakes, or belittling others for their errors.
- Teach children to develop “failure tolerance” by not over-reacting to their mistakes. Focus on the solution, not the problem or who is to blame.
- Don’t rescue children from every struggle, settle their conflicts, or shelter them from challenges unless absolutely necessary. Doing so suggests a perfect result is more important than the attempt itself.
- Never compare children to one another. “Bobby, why can’t you be a big boy like Tommy and get better grades?”
- Always point out the successes that are buried in every failure. If Betty spills the milk, point out how she got her own cup out of the cupboard, lifted the milk carton up by herself, and so on.
If we're afraid to make or acknowledge mistakes, and consequently raise children who are afraid to err as well, then we really fail -- as parents, as educators and as instruments of social change and maturity. A society of people stigmatized by failure, afraid to make mistakes or acknowledge error becomes a stagnant society full of compliant, fearful people.
Or as Edward John Phelps said, "The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything."
It's Hard to Learn without Making Mistakes
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