Chapters
1. What to do when your child is doing something wrong?
2. How do you help a child who hates getting things wrong?
3. How do you teach a child to deal with failures?
Does your kid hate being wrong or making a mistake? Let’s adjust their mindset and help them learn to love mistakes and treat them as valuable learning opportunities.You want your child to be successful academically, right? Well, it’s time to start letting them make more mistakes. You can guide them to learn from their mistakes and come out ahead!
What do you do when your child is doing something wrong?
Is it extremely dangerous? Stop them, of course! But a mistake like completing a homework assignment wrong? Step back and let them see it through to the end. The more you can encourage independent learning - including mistakes! - the more your child will begin to learn from their actions.
❗ Kids learn from your reactions and they will begin to react the same way. Learn to celebrate mistakes and focus on learning from them, rather than scolding children or telling them what to do.
You should also model making mistakes and being a learner - adults seem like they know everything to kids, so take time to try something new and let them see you mess up.
When kids are working on something challenging, praise the effort rather than saying something like, “oh you’re so smart!” Studies show that kids who were told they were smart did worse on a test than kids who were told they worked hard. Normalise the idea that hard work and perseverance help you become smarter, not that a person is or isn’t smart.
How do you help a child who hates getting things wrong?
Does your child hate making mistakes? Don’t worry, you can teach them to accept their failures and learn from them, but it will take time to learn new habits.
- Validate their feelings. It may seem over the top to you, but they really are that upset. And it’s okay to be upset. Don’t feel like you are responsible for that, just let them feel it and express it. Name it for them. “You really didn’t like losing the game.” “You’re really upset that you didn’t make the grade you expected.”
- Be sure to boost their confidence in other ways. Kids sometimes feel down about themselves when they make mistakes, so give them lots of opportunities to succeed as well! 💪
- Make mistakes fun! By bringing playfulness into the experience, you can take the stress of being wrong away. Try playing board games as a family, get outdoors for some sports, and find ways to add art into your day. These activities give kids - and adults! - a way to practice making mistakes and learning from them.
How do you teach a child to deal with failures?
The main thing you want to teach your kids is that mistakes and failures are not a bad thing!
Don’t try to fix it straight away for them. In fact, don’t fix it for them at all. An important part of high emotional intelligence is being able to manage one’s own feelings. So guide your child, but let them experience the failure fully in order to learn the most from it.
Focus on process over product. Scientists and mathematicians in the real world make mistakes all the time! Try reading some of these STEM books about mistakes with your child. They show how some of the greatest inventions and discoveries of our time started from failure.
📚 Try reading other books about mistakes that help kids see how common mistakes are, and how to cope. Give them space and time to fully experience the mistake, don’t interrupt them to let them know they are making a mistake 😜 As adults, it can be hard to bite our tongues when we know what the outcome will be, but kids need to experience it for themselves in order to learn from it!
In my Montessori classroom, I teach my students that mistakes are what makes your brain grow! So allowing mistakes is actually the best thing a parent can do to help their child’s development.
Experience is the best teacher, but you can also talk the situation through with your child afterwards to help them process it. Remember, the key is the learning process and the child discovering that they can make a mistake and it’s not the end of the world.
🚀 If your child is making more mistakes than not in school, it may be time for some extra help. A GoStudent tutor can guide your child through the subjects they are struggling with.
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