Let’s teach our kids to fail like Sam Kerr

It's normal to fail and it's essential to learn how to handle disappointment in order to succeed.

Transcript

Teach your child to fail like sam kerr Let's teach our kids to fail like Sam Kerr. If we want our kids to succeed in life, then we need to teach them how to fail. The most successful people are not the ones who never fail. They are the ones who are prepared to fail and have learned how to fail well. So let's take Sam Kerr from the Matildas as an example. She's one of the best athletes in our country. And she has experienced two crushing failures in one week. Let's look at what she didn't do. Firstly, she didn't catastrophize, which is a mistake that a lot of kids can make. They'll say things like, “I suck at this”. “I'm the worst.” “I'll never be able to do it.” And this often becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and sadly, they do never do it. Something else that Sam curt didn't do when she failed was she didn't deny reality. The matildas were not the best team on the field that day. That's just a fact. This is a hard one for us parents because it hurts to watch our kids fail, so we want to spare them from the disappointment. We'll say things like, “You should have won”. “The umpire was unfair.” Or we'll try to convince them that they were awesome when they actually weren't. And this does more harm than good. Let's look at what we can learn from Sam Kerr. When she failed, she didn't catastrophize, nor did she deny reality? She lost, she was gutted, and she owned her disappointment. But then instead of staying stuck in her failure, she focused on what she had rather than on what she didn't have. She said that it was her goal to create a legacy. She wanted people to be talking about the Matildas’ performance years from now. And then she said, “I did that”. And then she looked to the future. She's going to learn from her experience, and she said, “See you next here at the Olympics”. So here's what we need to teach our kids if we want them to reach their potential. Number one is to accept reality. It is normal to fail. We all fall short of our own expectations from time to time. Number two, don't protect our kids from disappointment. Professor Marc Brackett who is a world-leading expert on emotional intelligence, says one of the biggest reasons kids don't succeed is not because they are not capable. It's because they don't have the emotional strength to handle the feedback, the disappointment that is necessary to succeed. Because we have been protecting them from those difficult feelings. And by doing so, we have denied them the opportunity to develop this essential skill. Number three, get your child to focus on what they have rather than what they don't have. What did they learn from the failure? They might not have won, but they did achieve something. What was it? Celebrate that. And lastly, look to the future. What can your child do differently next time? What's the next exciting challenge your child can embrace?