Most kids are afraid to fail and, as parents and teachers, we naturally want our kids to
succeed. But failure is good and a crucial step on the path to learning?
Discussion questions for parents :
1) How will you treat your children when they fail in the exam?
2) How will you teach your children about life?
3 ) how do you teach about failure?
4) what is your opinion about failure?
5) If you hear about your neighbor s children failing, how would you react?
Do's
● Stop complaining
● Take responsibility
● Forgive yourself
● Celebrate the failure
● Debrief yourself
● Recommit yourself
● Create a new plan
● Reality-check your plan
● Teach your children sometimes It is good to fail .
● Only after losing do you enjoy victory.
Don't
● Don't laugh at failures
● Don't laugh your friends
● Don't laugh at anyone.
● Don't feel embarrassed
● Do not commit suicide
● Don't laugh at your neighbor's children if they fail.
● Don't get panic
1. Focus on Growth Mindset
We already know developing a growth mindset empowers kids. It also changes their reaction to
failure.
Failure is inevitable, but by focusing their attention on what went wrong and how they could fix
it, kids with growth mindsets were able to turn failures into positive learning experiences.
How do you stop failure?
● Ever tried
● accept how you feel
● Remember: you're not a failure just because you had a setback
● Be constructive and learn from this situation
● Remind yourself: anyone who wants to do things of value in life will fail
● Find inspiration and support from inspiration story
accept how you feel:
When you’ve just failed it will most likely hurt. Sometimes a bit. Sometimes a lot.
That’s OK.
Don’t try to push it away by distracting yourself or by trying to push the responsibility onto the
rest of the world (if you deep down know that this one’s on you partly or fully).
And don’t try to paint it over with a smile.
I’ve found that it works better to not let yourself be lead away by those options or impulses.
But to just be with what I’m thinking and feeling. To try to accept it, to let it in and to hurt for a
while instead of trying to reject it all and to keep it away.
Because when you let it in and accept it then it will go faster and in the long run be less painful
to process what has happened.
If you reject how you really feel then those emotions will pop up at unexpected times later on
and can make you moody, pessimistic, angry or sad.
2. Remember: you’re not a failure just because you had a setback.
When you’ve had a setback it’s very easy to start thinking that you will always keep failing in this
area of your life. It’s easy to start thinking that YOU are indeed a failure.
Don’t fall for such a destructive and sometimes seductive self-fulfilling prophecy.
Instead, remind yourself that:
Just because you failed today or yesterday doesn’t mean that you’ll fail the next time.
The truth is that this won’t last for the rest of your life if you keep moving forward, if you take
action and you keep learning and it doesn’t label you as some kind of failure (except if you
decide to create that label in your own head).
Seeing what’s negative as a temporary thing instead of something permanent is an essential
key to an optimistic attitude and to keep going forward in life.
3. Be constructive and learn from this situation.
See it more as valuable feedback and something you can use to improve rather than only a big
blow and setback.
I’ve found that the simplest and most helpful way to do that is to ask myself better questions
(instead of the common ones that send you off into a negative spiral).
What’s one thing I can learn from this?
How can I adjust my course to avoid this trap/making the same mistake and likely do better next
time?
What’s one thing I can differently the next time?
Take some time with these questions and be honest with yourself as you answer them.
There’s no rush and while some of the answers may be immediate others might take an hour,
day or even a week to pop up.
The important thing is to start thinking about the situation from this perspective and to be
constructive about things instead of getting stuck in denial or negativity and apathy.
4. Remind yourself: anyone who wants to do things of value in life will fail.
We often mostly just hear about people’s successes.
But the path to those milestones tends to have many setbacks. The story of someone’s success
may seem only bright and fast-moving in what's told in the media or we see in our minds.
5. Let it out into the light.
Another powerful way to handle the emotional fallout and the thoughts that come from a failure
is to not keep it all bottled up inside.
But to let it out into the light by talking it over with someone close to you.
By venting about it while the other person just listens you can sort things out for yourself, help
yourself to accept what happened instead of pushing it away and release that inner pressure.
By having a conversation about the situation you can see it from another perspective and
through someone else’s eyes.
This person can help you to ground yourself in reality again, to encourage and to perhaps even
to find a way forward.
6. Find inspiration and support from your world.
A conversation with someone close to you can be very helpful.
Another thing you can do is to learn from those who’ve gone where you want to go.
Read about how they handled setbacks and low-points before or during their success in books,
on websites or online forums.
Or you can simply tap into the enthusiasm or motivation of someone else by listening to a
podcast or audio book for maybe 30-60 minutes.
This may not be specifically about your current challenge but can help you to shift your mood
and mindset back towards optimism again.
7. Move forward again, don’t get stuck in mulling this situation over for too long.
Processing the situation and accepting it is essential.
But I know from experience that it’s also easy to get stuck in the same thoughts going around
and around for week or a month.
8. Take action on that plan right away after you’ve drawn it up.
The plan you come up with will just be a start. You can course-correct later on, along the way.
So you don’t have to make it perfect.
Trying to do that can sometimes just be a way to procrastinate because you fear failing again or
because it is hard to start moving after this rough and disorienting thing that happened to you.
Split your start of a plan up into small steps and then take action on just one of them.
If you still have a hard time to get going then go for a very small step, just 1-5 minutes of action
forward. The important thing is to get started and moving forward again so make that easy on
yourself.
9. Improve your self-esteem.
A last thing that has helped me in general to handle setbacks is to improve my self-esteem.
By doing so failures don’t become something that so easily drags me down and I recover more
quickly from them.
It also makes it easier to see what happened with more clarity and to take responsibility when I
am responsible but also to see when someone else is partly responsible or when I just had bad
luck that I could honestly not have predicted.
1. Selfishness
When you lack gratitude, you may find yourself thinking only of yourself. Your actions may be
more selfish. You may isolate yourself from those you love and care about because you only
see your needs. This action makes you more self-serving and living for the ego’s fulfillment
rather than feeling true selflessness and joy.
When you have others on your agenda, you are less alone and happier. You have support,
understanding, and compassion because you are also giving it. What you give comes back to
you, in some way. And that is enough.
If you partake in more selfless behavior and see those around you for what they’re worth, you
will be more prone to giving a helping hand. Then, you too will know that you’re not alone.
You have more reasons to live for. You have more people to share things with. You have goals
that may better serve the world.
2. Negative Emotions
It’s okay to feel negative from time to time. But when you are feeling that way most of the time,
you find yourself joyless and directionless. You lose sight of who you are and what you’re about.
Your aims become less about your needs and more about what others expect from you.
However, a simple act of appreciation can change the outcome of your life and emotional well-
being. You have feelings for a reason—they are meant to show you what you need. And if you
don’t listen to them, they become louder.
Maybe the lessons your emotions are trying to teach you is to stop chasing whatever comes
your way and see what you have. Appreciate how far you have come.
Mental health declines when you don’t live with gratitude. You may fall into a depression or find
yourself unhappy with what you have. You may be stressed, not living for the right things, or
feeling overwhelmed. You may see only your problems.
But if you choose gratitude, you also choose joy. You let in the positive and fix your focus. Your
gratitude is your natural mood booster. When you see what you have, you decide to stay. You
decide to keep fighting for yourself. You have a healthier attitude and way of being. This helps
you overall.
This can aid with depression. This can aid with anxiety, worry, stress, and anger. You can take
a step back and go, “Okay, this is what is good.” That is all you need to do to turn the situation
around.
Then, you have that good with you in your heart when you make decisions. You look up with
more optimism and feel lighter. You don’t have to carry everything that you’ve been carrying.
Sometimes, it feels good to set it down and see what’s most important.
