Did you happen to read the story in the news last week about the Texas football game where Aledo High School beat Ft. Worth Western Hills 91-0?
After the game, a parent from Ft. Worth Western Hills filed a bullying report in response to the game.
In an interview with the winning coach, he shared all the strategies he used to NOT score in the second half. His team actually hated the feeling of winning by such a huge margin.
Reading this really saddened me. Why? Because losing isn’t being bullied. Failure is a part of life. In fact, it’s how we learn.
As a parent, I admit that it is hard to have a front row seat at watching my child fail. I want to help! I want to rescue! But that doesn’t help my child…in fact, it often hurts him.
When Pam Farrel and I were writing the book Got Teens? we discovered a study about the effect of failure on the brain. It indicated that the brain optimally grows in failure!
That’s right! Failure is all about the brain growing! We need to understand this as parents because it gives us much needed perspective.
So the next time your child fails, resist the urge to assign blame to someone else. Hold back on rescuing. Let the natural consequences do their job of teaching.
And say to yourself, “This is part of life. My child’s brain is growing!”
