Taking on challenges, struggling, failing, analyzing mistakes, and reengaging is the route to growth, competence and self-esteem. Therefore children must learn to tolerate this process, including the failures. False praise and unrealistic labels create a focus on judgment that undermines a child’s willingness to risk failures.
Fostering Openness to Learning and Growth
Striking out in baseball is a mini failure and to some of us, quite painful. So how can I avoid this pain? If I don’t go up to bat, I will never strike out and therefore, never have to feel the pain of humiliation and frustration. Or … I can only hit against pitchers I am sure I can handle – therefore staying free of another dreaded strikeout. Two elegant solutions if I don’t say so. There is only one problem, however, with this elegant plan. If I never bat against challenging pitching, I will never improve. I have to meet the challenge of better pitching so that I can master and grow.
The act of striking out represents engagement in a challenging zone I have yet to master. If I want to get better, I need to risk striking out. In fact, if I analyze why I missed the pitch, I will get better – whether that analysis takes place behind a video screen or at bat having missed the first two strikes. This is a longwinded way of saying that to become a good baseball player, I must learn to tolerate failures, because they are sources of learning.
So how do we convince our children that they need to welcome failure as a means of learning and growing? Listen to this praise from a proud baseball dad:
“You are such a good hitter. You hit the ball every time. Three hits today! What a great hitter you are!”
What do you think of the praise Dad has handed out? He’s pretty proud of his son, isn’t he? Does anything worry you about what you just heard?
This is a loving, well-intentioned father. He believes he is heaping well-deserved praise on his son. What he is also heaping on his son is some unnecessary pressure. He has labeled him a “good hitter”, even a “great hitter”. That is a tough standard to live up to. There is added pressure if the child thinks Dad’s interest and caring is dependent upon continuing to be “good” or “great”. Unfortunately, Dad has also attached an unintended standard for what it means to be good or great. He observed, “You hit the ball every time” and “(You got) three hits today” in the process of labeling his son “good” and “great”. So what happens if the boy goes 0 for 4 in the next game? What if he strikes out more often than he gets hits? Is his status as “good” or “great” at risk? Will he worry about disappointing his dad? Will he view himself as a failure?
What do you think of these comments?
After striking out to end the game, his father consoles him,
“Don’t worry. You played great. You guys will win next time.”
So what is a boy to make of that? He certainly knows that striking out is not playing “great”. And what if they don’t win next time? Now do you understand why a kid would only want to go to bat against easy competition? That would certainly eliminate this confusion and potential for disappointment. Or, how about this as a solution? Blame the umpire for a bad third strike call. And find a good excuse why the other team won, such as cheating or unfair home field advantage. These are “great” ideas because they allow the child to preserve the label or expectation that he is “special” or “great”, as his dad called him, and can go on playing.
Can you think what the father might have said that would have been more helpful?
“So, how was it?” “What do you think went well?” “Any parts of that game you would like to change?” “How would you like to do that?”
“What did you think of that pitcher today?” “What did he do that made things tough for you guys?” “Want to figure out how to handle him next time?”
“Did you have fun?” “Why not?”
“I noticed that you did well spotting the fast balls the pitcher threw you, but had a harder time with the change-ups. I used to have a hard time hitting change-ups.” “Is that something you want to work on?”
If this boy is to grow as a ball player, he needs to tolerate losses and failures, like striking out. He also needs to know that failures or attempts are how he gets better. Perhaps they need to be labeled something other than failures. Something like trials or attempts? Linking trials with analysis, learning and improvement is the preferable route rather than linking success and failure with ratings of the person. Judgment is ultimately what steers boys away from activities such as sports, academics or talking to girls.
Perhaps the best way to promote this openness to failure and learning is for the father or coach to model it himself. When the child sees that the adult welcomes and learns from failures, it clearly becomes something acceptable for the child as well. Video games or Wii Sports are great opportunities for parents to model learning from losing. When a child sees the parent replay a lost game in order to learn how to play it better the next time, that probably has more potency than just giving that advice.