Should we welcome our children to fail?

[OctaviaZest]

Recently it's been bought up that there will be questions over our sports day due to the children getting upset after not winning, but surely by shielding children from failure, we're taking away a valuable life lesson?

I'm at a loss, as adults we experience failure but should children?

Thank you x

[Theas18]

Absolutely yes.

On one of the child genius programmes - I know they are car crash tv- a dad took his kids to do badminton because he knew , for once they'd not be the " best" and would learn a lesson from it. Sort of cruel but an interesting idea.

Trouble is kids don't experience failure sometimes and it's awful when your 1st failure is a really important one to you. I wonder if it's any easier having "failed" in other areas of life before. I'm not sure because the importance isn't there. Mine are not sporty ( well DS is somewhat). They are musical and " failure" in auditions has happened and been lived through. I think it might have helped when we got to the " big stuff" for them do far - uni applications. But those " failures " were still awful at the time. They came through it, pulled themselves up and aced A2 though. DS still rebuilding his self confidence I think though.

Resilience is a big thing in the school at the moment. I think ( it's a grammar school) they are realising that these kids never fail at anything they set their mind to academically having been brought up with a " work hard enough you'll get there" ethic. Learning to fail is another skill.

[OctaviaZest]

Thank you, for your response. I agree I think children need to experience failure in order to develop, or as you said the first one comes as a huge shock.

Octavia

[purplemurple1]

How old are the kids? I think it's important to learn to try their best but accept we aren't all good at everything. How could you have a sportsday without someone winning a competition?

[bearleftmonkeyright]

I think failure is the wrong word entirely particularly with sports day. I don't think any child needs to be told they have "failed" at something.

[OctaviaZest]

True, I think children shouldn't feel that they've failed but I do think when they have come 5th or last, or failed and exam it should be recognized but not making them feel bad about it just explaining what happened and that it happens to us all.