The Best Teaching Tool There Is
I know that the holidays are over and you've probably given your child a huge amount of gifts. But I want you to think hard about giving him or her one more gift -- a very special gift.
Today -- right now -- give your boy or girl the very best teaching tool in the world. Give him or her permission to fail.
It's become increasingly popular of the past 20 years or so for parents to be vigilant and try to protect kids, not just from true danger, but from any type of adversity, frustration or disappointment. There are actually names for that type of parenting.
In the early 1990s experts coined the term Helicopter Parents to describe moms and dads who hover over their kids all the time, ready to jump in and rescue them when the least bit of trouble arises. These days Helicopter Parents are taking a backseat to Snowplow Parents. Snowplow Parents are Helicopter Parents on steroids. They don’t wait for trouble to show up. They push every challenge out of the way (like a snowplow) in order to help their children avoid struggle, failure, discomfort, frustration or missed opportunities. The goal is to create what they see as a perfect world for their kids.
What Helicopters and Snowplows don’t understand is the value of failure. Children of those types of parents never have a chance to learn resilience and resourcefulness by facing the setbacks and failures that are an inevitable part of real life.
Child development experts say that learning problem solving, taking risks and overcoming frustration are crucial life skills. The way children acquire those skills is to let them make mistakes and face defeat. I’ve been involved in youth baseball for 25 years, and in softball since I opened Bash 16 years ago. Believe me when I say that those sports are all about failure.
Consider this: an MLB hitter can punch his ticket to the Hall of Fame if he only fails at bat 70% of the time. It’s a very hard game. Ted Williams, quite possibly the greatest hitter of all time, said that hitting a baseball well is the hardest thing to do in any sport. Defeat is baked into the game.
Former big leaguer Jason Kipnis played in two All-Star games during his career. In 2015, he placed in the top 10 of all MLB players with a .303 batting average and a .372 on-base percentage. Overall, he had a very solid 10 year career. A couple of years ago, he ran a hitting clinic at Bash. The wisdom he imparted most often during that clinic? Baseball is a game that knocks you down – and to be successful at it, you have to pick yourself back up and keep going.
Then why do many parents cringe at the thought of their kids failing on the ballfield? I’m sure those parents can give me plenty of reasons. But none of the reasons outweigh the benefits of letting the game teach their children the important life lessons that will make them better, more successful adults.
We all want the best for our kids. But, while trying to keep them from experiencing failure on the field may make them feel better in the short term, it does not help them in the long term. Snow plowing away the hurt and frustration that’s a natural part of the game, actually robs him or her of learning how to overcome that frustration.
In recent years, I have started using the phrase “let the game do its job”. Let the game give your child opportunities to overcome frustration, and become resilient, self-reliant adults. Don’t insulate your player from that failure by blaming a strikeout on bad umpiring. Don’t give them an excuse for not making the team by blaming the coach or “politics”. But DO teach him or her not to fear failure and losing. Remind them that there will be other at-bats, more games to play, other opportunities to try out. Teach them that winning isn’t just about scoring more runs. Winners are able to move past the error they just made, the weak groundout they just hit or getting picked off of base. They learn from those mistakes and step up to give it another shot.
The ballfield is a wonderfully safe place to fail. There, young players can learn vital life skills without any real consequences. It doesn’t affect their grades or their ability to attend a better high school or college. No one gets injured when they strike out. Losing a game or even a bunch of games doesn’t leave emotional scars (although I’ve seen some dad/coaches get a bit twitchy after a loss).
Failure is good. Failure is essential. Failure teaches us much more than success. Give your kids a gift that will serve them for the rest of their life. Give them permission to fail.