It is very important in life to fail in order to understand the importance of success. As much as it hurts, failure is an integral part of life. It is a great teacher and a stepping stone. Without failure, we will not be able to understand compassion, kindness, empathy and achievements. So it is significant to appreciate the failure. Failure shows that a person is learning. So it is very crucial that we teach the importance of failure to our children. Read on to know more on this.
The Importance Of Failure In The Growing Years
Most of us are overprotective of our children. We do not want them to feel bad or hurt if they fail. So what do we do? We mask their failure as success.
“You came last for running? No problem, it does not matter. Let us go for an ice cream treat”
“You scored low in exam? Marks do not matter anyway”
“Your team lost the quiz? Do not say “lost”, you participated, that itself is a win”
Now, do not get us wrong. It is equally important to teach your child that winning or losing is not a matter of life and death and what is key is to give one’s best shot. That said, we should also not mask their failure. Here is why:
- Importance of trying: Some parents do not make their kids do things that the kids are not good at fearing that a failure will demotivate them. But this is not correct. The child should know the importance of trying. Failure is the “lack of success”. This means that, to fail, you need to try to succeed. Do not stop your child from trying
- Fear of failure: When you overprotect your little ones, they grow up developing a fear for failure. The result? They will never push themselves or try to do anything out of ordinary for the fear of not succeeding. Failures are not big deals. As you will see in the next section, failures are common and have to be dealt with to succeed
- Failure means learning: Failure is the best way to teach a child hope. When a child fails, he has learnt something. And that is a wonderful experience that needs to be discussed, reflected upon and remembered. If nothing, the child learns to face rejections – and that helps to make him/her a stronger human
5 Famous People Who Failed Before Succeeding
It is your responsibility to make your child deal positively with failure. But there is only so much pep talks can do. A better way to motivate your child is to pick some of his/her favorite personalities and explain to them how they also failed, and despite that, they turned around their fate and succeeded. This will help your child relate to failures better and more importantly, move on and keep working at their goal. Here are five famous personalities that your child might know and idolize who have failed:
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- J.K. Rowling: The brain and the writer behind the much loved Harry Potter series did not have a path paved with petals. At one point of time, Rowling was jobless and did not have any money. She was a single mother struggling to raise her daughter. She was living on government welfare. And finally when she took the script of Harry Potter to publishers, 12 of the top firms rejected the script. A small publisher accepted and agreed to print 1,000 copies of the first book. Now, as you know, Rowling has sold over 400 million copies of her book around the world!
- Walt Disney: If your child watches TV and movies, he/she would know Walt Disney. When he started out, his first business was a failure and he went into bankruptcy. He was heavily on debt. But this did not stop Disney from moving forward. He finally created the Walt Disney Company which produced many successful movies and cartoons, in addition to launching every child’s dream theme parks
- Katy Perry: The beautiful and talented singer of Roar, which most children love, dropped out of school and made few unsuccessful albums. Despite the failure, she worked on her music, and finally after seven years of seeing no hope, she got her first big hit
- Jim Carrey: The hilarious actor of The Mask and Ace Ventura, movies that kids love, had a difficult upbringing. He was poor, dropped out of school and worked as a janitor to support his family. He did not get through many auditions and he was often boo-ed when he did stand up comedy. But Carrey did not give up. He pursued and now we all know how successful he is
- Henry Ford: All the little motor heads would know the brand Ford. Henry Ford created the biggest automobile brand in the world. But before he created the Ford Motor company, he had two huge failures and went bankrupt
So please tell your little stars that setbacks, minor or major, are parts of life and if they try hard enough with perseverance, patience and dedication, they will be able to achieve everything they want.
If you have anything to add to this, please leave it in the comments section below.
