5 Things You Can Do to Help Your Kids Succeed

Teaching our kids to succeed begins with first teaching them how to fail well. Here are 5 things you can do to help them succeed without completely paving the way for them.

In the effort to see our kids succeed, it’s tempting to believe that our best course of action is to train our kids to avoid failure in the first place. Maybe we warn them of dire consequences or provide examples of other young men and women who’ve landed in life’s proverbial gutter because of their missteps. Or maybe we focus on being the best parent, who cultivates the best home, social, and spiritual environment to nurture our kids’ success.

Our goal is a good, and necessary, one: for our kids to have their own personal desire to succeed, make good choices, and have healthy responses to life’s inevitable setbacks. But the research suggests that getting there is less about training kids to avoid failure and more about teaching them to wade through it.

As it turns out, learning how to respond to failure in a healthy way, rather than striving to avoid it, not only reduces the high anxiety levels over perfectionism and comparison our kids are dealing with today, but it’s also linked to wonderful character traits like endurance, resolve, and perseverance. Research also shows that kids who learn to deal with failure are more likely to retain their faith in God as an adult.  

So how can you foster a healthy response to failure in your kids so they can succeed? Here are five things you can do:

Model Failing Well

We want to avoid giving our kids the impression that other people, including their family members, don’t make mistakes. With picture-perfect social media posts constantly begging for our attention, even we moms can come to the conclusion that failure doesn’t exist outside our doors. Modeling a healthy response to failure may look like shrugging off a broken dish or burned dinner, with a casual “Oh well, we’ll live.”

Maybe it’s trying a new activity with your kids you know you’re not good at, just so they can see you mess up. Make ugly sugar cookies. Have a “worst drawing” contest. I took up surfing a few summers ago just so my kids could see me laughing my way through failure and not give up. With more impactful failure, you can model how to make space for the feelings that come with it, like sadness and disappointment. I shared with my kids recently that I had been working really hard on a project only to have it rejected. I shared how painful it was, I allowed myself to be sad in front of them, and after a couple of days, I told them I was going to try again. It’s finding appropriate ways to model that failure is a part of life, but it doesn’t control our lives.

Praise Effort, Not Outcome

Often times we define failure as not getting the outcome we want, even when we put in the effort. When we praise the effort, rather than the outcome, we’re teaching our kids to give their best effort and stick with things instead of giving up when the ultimate goal isn’t achieved. For example, try something like “I am so proud of how hard you studied for that test” rather than “I’m so proud of that A!” Or, “You practiced so diligently, that’s so impressive” rather than “I’m so impressed you won the competition!” This way, kids learn that an undesirable outcome is not the end of the world. It doesn’t mean they wasted their time or need to give up.  

Check Your Own Anxiety About Your Kids Failing

What I mean by this is so often we want to prevent our kids from failing, so we parent two steps ahead, putting all sorts of systems in place so they won’t fail. For example, I was picking out my 12-year-old daughter’s clothes for church so she wouldn’t pick the wrong outfit herself (and simultaneously wondering why my 12-year-old daughter couldn’t pick out her own clothes!). Perhaps for you, it’s putting your kids’ homework in their backpacks for them (or doing it for them!).

 I know it seems backward, but research shows, in order to achieve our goal of having successful kids, we actually need to back off and allow space for their missteps. Of course, you’re still there, providing clear expectations and standards of behavior. Those are vital. But you’re not two steps ahead of them, clearing their path from anything they may stumble on. Rather, you’re coming alongside, helping them navigate those missteps, and press on.

Cultivate Safety and Connection in Your Relationships with Your Kids:

Connection to family is a vital part of our kids’ future success, and it’s cultivated through intentional time together and many conversations. Over and over, your kids need to hear you say, “You will make bad choices, and you will come up short. I love you no matter what, and I want you to feel comfortable coming to me regardless of what you’ve done.” This is something we need to say often and actually live out to build trust. Also, nitpicking and nagging shut down connections (which is something I continue to fail at!).    

Check Your Own Emotions and Expectations for Being “A Great Mom”:  

Our anxiety over being a great mom doesn’t help anyone. We’ll make mistakes. We’ll blow it. We’ll be too strict one day and too lenient the next. We’ll miss opportunities to say the right thing or model exemplary behavior. All of our shortcomings are opportunities to depend on God and his wisdom. He alone is the perfect parent.

And if you, beloved mama, are still battling shame and regret from failures in your past, know that God loves you dearly. Because he defeated your sin on the cross, you can live guilt-free. Because he holds all power and authority, you can know that even the consequences of your failure can be used to ultimately bless you and your kids, and glorify God. Failure never gets the final word. Our loving and merciful Father does.

xoxo,

Lauren