Watching your son or daughter trying to accomplish a task that brings with it a reward that they want very badly is very hard for a parent. In our school as a child is demonstrating their jumping rope, performing a form or some other skill, many parents have told me they have sat on the side holding their breath, hoping for success. For all parents though just this one thought:
Success does not mean avoiding failure.
In fact, with the right attitude, failure is neither fatal or final. It can be the springboard to success.
All of us fail. The only way we will not fail is if we do not try anything. The question is how will we fail? How will we view mistakes? If we are to be a success we must learn to fail in the forward direction. In other words our mistakes must not get inside our head and stop us from giving it another try.
When we are teaching our children about success – we can also teach them about the power of failure. Learning from their mistakes, thinking about how to improve ourselves and the situation, focusing on the rewards of success will keep our children and ourselves from becoming negative in our attitude and mind. Failure can be a great learning experience, an opportunity for growth and character building experience.