It pains a parent to see his or her child fail. However, you can make the situation less stressful for either of you by teaching him or her to adopt a positive attitude. Here are some tips on how you can do just that.
Whenever a child fails on something, it will have some effect on his or her development in the later stages of his or her life. Sometimes, the way that a child deals with his or her downfalls and disappointments can determine whether he or she will be able to perform better in his or her future endeavors or not.
One of the things that you can do to ensure that your child will be able to handle himself or herself later on in the future is if you can help your child deal with failure in the earliest possible time. Since your child is still young and might not understand the many things that happen with regard to failure, it is your duty as his or her parent to be available to provide support and sound explanations. Here are a few hints on how you can help your child deal with failure.
1) Support your child.
Your child will experience a lot of things for the first time, and he or she will also fail at these things a few times before he or she can get them right. The only way that you can help your child continue on is by supporting your child in all of his or her endeavors, projects, and performances. Let your child know that you are behind him or her, whatever may happen in his or her attempts to do or accomplish something.
2) Maintain a positive attitude.
If you keep a positive attitude about you, you can help your child feel better over his or her failure. If you show your child that his or her failure is not the death of him or her, then he or she may just be able to see that there are still a lot of things that he or she can do to make up for the failure. The important thing here is that even if your child fails a lot of times in attempting to do something, you should let him or her know that everything will still be all right, just as long as he or she keeps a positive attitude about it.
3) Never punish your child.
Punishing your child for failure can only make things worse. You only aggravate your child’s disappointment on himself or herself, and what’s worse is that you are not doing anything to push yourself to do better the next time around. If your child tries to perform better out of fear, then the result is still not as satisfying for the both of you. Make sure that you allow your child to make a few mistakes for this is the only way that he or she can learn from it, which is through experience.
4) Surround your child with praise.
Whenever your child fails on accomplishing a particular goal, it is important that you show your child that you value not only the accomplishment of the goal, but his or her performance towards accomplishing the goal, as well. This will help your child focus not just on the completion of a particular task, but also looks into how he or she performs in trying to complete a task. This will make him or her feel a little accomplishment even if he or she is not able to fully complete the task.
Children should be dealt with in a more subtle and delicate manner since children are very sensitive and delicate when it comes to their emotions. Just make sure that you allow your child to learn and develop his or her capabilities on his or her own time, when he or she is ready. Allow your child to commit a few mistakes every now and then.
Author: Julieta Chin
