Dear Parent, be ok with your child failing(sometimes)
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original” – Sir Ken Robinson
If you went to school in Nigeria anytime between Independence and the late 90s (dunno what happens now) you probably experienced corporal punishment. Floggings from teachers for misbehaviour, late assignments, or wrong answers.
Students are called up in front of the class to answer a question, usually maths and if they get it wrong, they are shamed by the teacher and the teacher encourages the students to chorus “Shame shame shame SHAME”
Think about what that kind of public shaming by an authority figure and peers does to a student who may already be struggling or have self-esteem issues.
If that’s not bad enough, at home, some parents have a cane in one hand while they help their primary school-aged children with their homework. If they get distracted or get an answer wrong, down comes the cane, as well as impatience and frustration-inspired insults.
Can you imagine what an experience this is for a child? That being wrong will bring them shame, pain, or humiliation.
That failure instead of being an opportunity to learn how to accomplish something brings me distraught, humiliation, punishment, and sometimes physical pain.
That if they ever do or say something wrong, they will be damned? That’s pretty terrible programming. The association of pain and fear with failure.
Probably why by the time some kids get to university age they are afraid to answer a question or ask a question. They don’t take tough but beneficial classes because it may mess up their report card if they fail or get a lesser grade.
In his book, The Jewish Phenomenon,, Steven Silbiger writes
“Succeeding is very important, but success cannot happen every time. One needs to have the courage to try different things. Doing the same thing each day, meeting the same people, traveling the same route, one will rarely encounter new challenges. Ironically, staying in your comfort zone should become increasingly uncomfortable. You should not set up situations or conditions for your children or yourself that are so difficult that the penalty of failure is greater than the penalty of doing nothing. Reward yourself and your child for trying something different, even if there is some initial hesitation.
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Would they be able to invent, innovate, explore unknowns without that programming kicking in, reminding them of the ramifications of failing and the pain that accompanies it?
Where would Elon Musk’s space ambition be if he was constantly shamed as a child for saying or doing something that didn’t work?
Would he have become a resilient adult despite how many millions and public failures he experienced?
Many of the thought leaders, innovators, world-class athletes, inventors we admire today, took risks, left “secure” jobs, dropped out of school, moved to a different town where they know nobody with little to no money in their pocket.
They didn’t allow failure to discourage them, and may have had doubters, but had a society that encouraged dreams(mostly).
They’ve invented things we can’t live without, built empires, are living their dreams. Fear and shame may have existed but it was not institutional, it wasn’t the culture.
Dear Parent, Guardian,
Don’t let your impatience, lofty expectations, transfer of aggression from outside the home or the need to compete with your neighbour as parent of an A+ student, lead you to wire your child’s brain to be a
quiet, subservient drone; who does everything to avoid being noticed, lest they face public humiliation, undermining, verbal abuse.
If we want a different Nigeria socially, economically, and intellectually, we need to rethink the culture of shaming people’s failure for cheap laughs.
It starts with us. Each one of us.
How we parent.
How we lead.
How we interact with those who value our opinion, perspective, or feedback.
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