Albert Einstein famously said: “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
From the moment a toddler attempts their first steps, falls, and then gets up again – they have just learnt their most important lesson in life: Mistakes are how we grow and learn. Mistakes are part of the learning process itself.
Whether it’s related to school or the home environment, parents often want to step in and rescue their child from making mistakes. However, in the long run, this won’t do children any good.
For example, kids who are learning to use scissors, struggle with handling, cutting, and accuracy. They might take longer than you are comfortable with, or they might cut things wrong and get frustrated. Parental instinct is to swoop in and take over one small step. But that’s one big step for your child that you just took for them. The child may not have made a mistake, but they also didn’t learn in that moment.
Failure Inspires Learning
According to leading child educator, Kirsten Anderson, rescuing children from mistakes prevents them from learning. She explains that failure is an important ingredient for children to become, “independent, resilient and successful learners”.
From the moment a child is born, they need our assistance. It takes many years of development before they become capable of caring for themselves. Parents are therefore hard wired to do things for their kids, and not let them fail. So even in the smallest of things, we tend to offer a helping hand.
For example, it’s common for some parents to want to rescue their child when they are stressed around homework, especially if they’ve left it to the last minute. However, if you jump in and do it for them, you will be setting a precedent for an unhealthy pattern. Ask yourself, what’s the worst that can occur if this doesn’t get done? What can my child learn from this? And how can I guide and support my child without doing it for them?
By allowing your child to fail due to poor time-management, they’ve now learnt how to better plan their study timetable. Time management skills can then be applied across many life settings as they grow older.
Mistakes Can Feel Scary
Making mistakes can feel scary and upsetting. Especially in school where everything is graded and measured based on outcomes. However, when parents and teachers allow the process of failure, and model learning from mistakes themselves, it will give a child more confidence to keep learning and achieving.
Welcoming Mistakes
When a child makes a mistake – even if it’s as small as spilling their drink on the floor, you can say ‘that’s okay, we all make mistakes.’ Hand them a towel and ask them to wipe it up. If they are very young, do it along with them, so they understand what to do. If children are yelled at or shamed for making little errors in their everyday life, it will affect their ability to try things in other settings, including school.
You can also model this when you make a mistake in front of them. For example, if you knocked over a drink, you could say, ‘oh whoops I knocked it over my mistake, but that’s okay, I will clean it up now’, with a smile on your face.
Mistakes Can Be Fun
Mistakes don’t have to be boring. They can also be fun. Learning through play is a great way to reinforce this concept. For example, sports games teach new skills, and the rough and tumble errors are all part of the game. For younger children, wooden educational toys, are a great way to teach trial and error learning.
A classic example is a jigsaw puzzle which involves trying different methods and joining different pieces together, until one gets it right! The sense of accomplishment and achievement at the end is great for self-esteem. Even if they don’t succeed the first time, they can come back to it again and again. These lessons will accompany the child throughout their life.
Stepping Stones
Mistakes are stepping stones in the learning process. They force us to explore an alternative way to achieving an outcome and lend themselves to the creative process of learning. Success is a mindset where mistakes are viewed as challenges, rather than failures.