Failing feels AWFUL. No one wants to fail, and we certainly don't want our children to fail.
But truly, failure is QUITE good for us! It's showing us that we're trying something very new and different. As SOON as we fail, we re-evaluate - what happened? WHY did I fail?
It's the number one, best moment with the most potential for learning than we get in the entire week, maybe even in the month. Celebrate failure! Don't let it crash down on you.
As soon as you see - that did NOT go as planned, be sure to recognize that this is not the end. It's a wonderful transition with lots of unknowns and you want the children to fail as MUCH AS POSSIBLE this year, during this time, while they're under your roof.
Failure is GOOD because you're RIGHT THERE to see it, witness it!.... and correct and love them through it. Next year, if you have seniors like us, you may not even hear about the failure.
So the more they fail this year, the better, because they'll know better how to recover.
Three cheers for failure! Learning ABOUNDS! Tell me: What did you fail at this week? I'll start: my banana pudding was an absolute failure. I hadn't made it in 20 years, and it SHOWS. I immediately wanted to go out buy more bananas, and try again, because I could see what I did wrong (too much nilla, not enough puddin', and I cooked it TOO LONG - like wallpaper paste too long). I didn't get that chance, but I've learned SO MUCH more about making puddings and types of bananas. If it had come out perfect, I wouldn't have learned about making homemade pudding, and my jeans would be too tight.
When students fail - or mess up, rather - during our live sessions on Spanish Geniuses, the others learn, and they ask more questions - their senses are heightened and they want to know HOW, WHY, and WHAT would have made it correct, and then BOOOOM, they try again! Everyone learns from failure!
If you fail again and again - it's still ok, but maybe try a different learning style to make those failures a little less frequent and therefore more meaningful. Your and your children's learning styles may differ, and that can cause unnecessary obstacles. A quick, easy read is this little fun book I wrote about how to learn ALL subjects called the Key to Learning Anything. You can get it on Kindle too!
Finally, as you are jumping back up, or sluggishly pulling yourself up, or rolling over and taking a breather, after your failure, write it down. I have our kids use their Skinny Books for all sorts of things - the small nature of the page gives them permission to jot quickly, doodle ideas, and turn the page quickly. It's such a relief to only have a few inches to fill of space, yet it's still a "full size" notebook that isn't childish.
If you have a child who is too shy to fail (a perfectionist maybe?) then grab a set of googly eyes - let them "talk to the hand" - suddenly evyerthing is ok, beacuse the HAND is speaking, making mistakes, and no one is expecting them to have eye contact... their eyes are ALLLLL googly! take the pressure off - EXPECT FAILURE this week, and celebrate the learning that comes from it!
When did you fail most recently? Is there a blessing or a lesson hidden there? Tell me about it in the comments!