Newsletter for Failure and Resilience
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Last week several faculty and staff were in my office (during one of our monthly Brown Bag Lunch meetings) and the topic of failure and resilience came up. The conversation that ensued was fascinating.
In the most general sense, we all know resilience as the ability to succeed despite stress and adversity. Beyond this, it includes the skill to recover from defeat, learn, grow, and try again. We also know that resilience is a hallmark of successful and happy adults. At the same time, however, most of us are not rigorous in our understanding of what characteristics constitute resiliency. Therefore, I did some research and came upon a wonderful article from Ohio State University: Fostering Resilience in Children.
In this research, five characteristics were cited as essential to the development of resilience over the course of one’s life. Some of them are common sense while others require you to put on your thinking caps.
- Cognitive Superiority: This has more to do with environment than genetic inheritance. Exposure to hands-on games, sophisticated language, and much reading to oneself and aloud from the adults in one’s life. This is not innate IQ—please see last year’s Friday Folder Praise and Effort for more understanding on this point.
- Autonomy: The ability and desire to accomplish tasks on one’s own, which is promoted through age-appropriate self-care and chores around the home and at school.
- Androgyny: The practice of transcending one’s typical gender role such that males are more affective and females more adventurous. Adults at school and parents at home should model this trait.
- Social Skills: An environment where all children are accepted for who they are and where pro-social behaviors such as telling the truth, sharing, and empathy are honored. In part, “You can’t say you can’t play.”
- Internal Locus of Control: The belief and ability to influence what happens to you, fostered by games and activities where children have influence over the outcome. And yes, this is also present in how they negotiate family norms and exceptions with you at home, and with their teachers at school.
Fortunately these are five characteristics that we nurture during every school day at RDS. In fact, a succinct summary of these points is found in our motto: Engaged. Prepared. Inspired.
But implicit in all this is the role of failure in both the development of resiliency and in the education of your child as a student at RDS and a student in life. Sure, we all know intellectually how necessary it is for our kids to experience failure so they learn how to hang in there when the going is tough and learn about themselves by understanding what went wrong. But when it comes to putting this into practice with our children, this is easier said than done.
There is nothing more painful to a parent than watching your child labor unsuccessfully at a task—whether it is homework, not playing on a team, struggling with friends, caving in to peer pressure, or consistently losing homework assignments. In fact, the pain often overwhelms us to the point where we step in to help and/or rescue them, which translated, means to protect them from failure; and further translated, means robbing them of the opportunity to strengthen their resilience.
In other words, saving them from the struggle and the pain feels good in the moment—for both you and your child. Your child is instantly appreciative of your assistance and you bask in the glory, for a brief moment. But in another part of your being you ask: What just happened? And sadly what often just happened is that you inadvertently yanked back a chance for your child to learn and grow from a naturally occurring failure in his life. Meaningful education and critical insights do not come without a price. (In this regard, I highly recommend Wendy Mogel’s wonderful book The Blessing of A Skinned Knee.)
My belief is that in terms of helping our children develop resiliency, the key point is the fifth one in the Ohio State research: internal locus of control. Because it is primarily through knowing that one has influence over what happens to oneself that leads children to learn to overcome failure by digging in deeper. Furthermore, the best way for our students to learn this is through their own failures and what they subsequently come to learn about persistence. And for them to make the most of these experiences they need our unflagging support and belief in their ability to bounce back. That is, we are the ever-present coach who refuses to give up on her players, especially when they doubt themselves. In this regard we cannot teach our children resiliency, but we can help them to recognize these learning opportunities when they arise, though in the moment, at least through their eyes, these will feel like anything but opportunities.
Keep an eye out for this over the weekend, you might be surprised with how often these opportunities arise, just as long as you are looking and listening for them. Once you spot these moments, wait, catch yourself, and give your children the room and time to seize the opening for themselves.
Mike
PS: Over at Pixar they don’t even call it failure—they call it error correction or the opportunity for error correction. I like that.
