Dare to Fail

Dare to Fail

Do you remember that childhood mantra: If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again. Children are not afraid to try and fail. That’s how they learn. They persist, try new things, and take chances. Sooner or later, they succeed and their confidence grows.

In Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children,  Roberta Michnick Golenkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek list six skills vital for success in today’s world: collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creativity, and confidence. Without confidence, the previous five remain dormant. To step up to a challenge, children must first have the confidence to step out. 

Golenkoff and Hirsh-Pasek write that confidence is composed of two components: the willingness to try and the pluck to persevere. Babies personify both. Imagine what courage is involved in taking your first step. You try, you fall down. You try again, you fall again. Finally, after many attempts, you walk across the room into Mommy’s arms. Success! What can you try now?

We’ve all heard stories about the little engines that couldn't — the Wright brothers’ many plane crashes, Thomas Edison’s thousand bulbs that didn’t light, J.K. Rowling’s rejection notices. Without their persistence, we would be stuck on the ground in the dark never having boarded the Hogwarts Express with Harry Potter. 

How can parents help their children gain confidence? Clinical psychologist Wendy Model says “get out of the way.” Let your children try and fail. Let them take calculated risks. When they fail or succeed, help them analyze what they did right or did wrong. Praise them for trying, not only for winning. Acknowledge their feelings and allow them to work it out for themselves with hugs or tears when needed. Don’t trap them in bubbles, let them run free, even when covered in band-aids.  

Confident children are willing to communicate their ideas, collaborate with others, learn new things, examine information, find problems, and create new solutions. Confident children make plans, execute them, and critically examine their results. Confident children have parents who allow them to try and fail and who encourage them to try again, parents who teach their children to view failure not as a catastrophe but as a learning experience. 

Author C.S. Lewis said, “Failures are finger posts on the way to achievement.” 

Teach your children to look at failure as a step toward improvement. Champion skiers started on the bunny slope. Olympic divers belly flop. Famous writers revise. All successful people started out as infants using their senses to learn about the world. 

Successful people don’t start at the top, they climb and fall and climb again. Teach your children to climb. Give them the encouragement they need to mount the next step. Applaud even when they tumble down and encourage them to climb again. 

For if at first you don’t succeed, those who keep trying will. 

(This is the final article in a series inspired by Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children by Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D. and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D. I encourage you to read it.)

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of Speech

(First in a series of four freedoms)

On January 6, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his State of the Union address. Europe was at war with Hitler. Many in the U.S. wanted to remain isolated from European affairs. Roosevelt, preparing the country for possible future involvement stated that “No realistic American can expect” to stay free from a dictator’s influence unless by opposing it. He framed his arguments with the four essential freedoms: Freedom of speech and expression; Freedom to worship; Freedom from want; and Freedom from fear. 

Roosevelt expressed the first freedom as “The freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.” FDR maintained that freedom of speech in one country can be eroded unless all nations share the same freedom. It was the responsibility of democratic nations to guarantee “the supremacy of human rights everywhere.”  

Artist Norman Rockwell illustrated the Four Freedoms. His Freedom of Speech painting shows an average man speaking his piece in a local meeting. Many in the world did not share this right. FDR wanted to guarantee this right in all nations. Allowing dictators to limit speech anywhere would affect the same freedom here.

Less famous than Rockwell’s paintings are the four essays commissioned by the Saturday Evening Post to accompany them. American writer Booth Tarkington wrote the story which accompanied Freedom of Speech.

Tarkington imagines a meeting of two young men in an Alpine Mountain chalet. A slight young painter and a burly journalist share a table. Talk turns to politics and the subject of free speech comes up. 

The journalist notes, “In [countries with free speech rights] the people create their own government…so the people really are the governments. They let anybody stand up and say what he thinks. If they believe he’s said something sensible, they vote to do what he suggests. If they think he is foolish, they vote no.” He concludes that those who wish to seize power will fail in these nations.

The painter agrees, “Speech is an expression of thought and will. Therefore, freedom of speech means freedom of the people.” He says that limiting this right might allow a dictator to take power. He continues “so long as governments actually exist by means of freedom of speech, [dictators] … shall not be able to last a day unless we destroy freedom of speech.” 

His friend asks how this can be done. The painter proposes a “purge” — creating fear so that people will choose to limit speech to ensure their safety. 

The journalist counters, “They would be brainless to make such a choice — utterly brainless.” The painter counters, “…many people can be talked into anything, even if it is terrible for themselves.” 

The young journalist exits and the young painter asks the innkeeper who he was. 

The landlord replies “I don’t know his whole name, but I have heard him called ‘Benito,’ my dear young Herr Hitler.”

Tarkington’s chilling story underlined Roosevelt’s fear that limiting free speech rights in any nation limits the rights of every nation. 

FDR quoted founding father Benjamin Franklin in his speech, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” 

Cherish the four freedoms. Promote ethical actions in our nation and the world. Speak freely and justly.

(FDR’s full speech (voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu), Rockwell’s paintings, and Tarkington’s essay ( www.saturdayeveningpost.com) are available online. I encourage you to find them.)