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| From 2011-07-02 |
The 1,000-foot climb to the top of the mountain on the island of Runde in Norway features a steep, muddy and poorly-marked trail, with cold winds and a steady drizzle being the norm.
And CJ killed it.
Sure, there were some early, minor protestations as she began, but for the most part, she did a fair imitation of a good soldier. Had I understood at the outset the difficulty of the climb ahead of us, I probably would have tried to come up with an alternate activity for CJ. But my ignorance served us well. She was spurred on by finding creatures great (sheep and skua) and small (caterpillars, slugs) and by the encouragement of her mother.
The past year and a half has been full of CJ surprising us with what she is capable of. She could ice skate before turning 3, write her letters and numbers shortly afterwards. Now, at age 4, she can swim the length of a pool and ride a bike without training wheels, and her Chinese improves day-by-day. It tells me that she is generally capable of much more than what we expect of and ask from her, and I feel culpable for not providing the context for her to reach her potential. Then again, where is the line between demanding too much and not enough? Becky and I, of course, generally disagree on the location of that line and how to find it.
My job is to introduce her to the tools of an independent adult as early as possible, since the longer she has to experiment with those tools under the security of our roof, the better off she’ll be when she actually does strike it out on her own. Part of that toolset is to constantly challenge herself and to not be afraid of failure. And you can’t overcome fear of failure without having failed a few times, and better to fail early and learn how to deal with it, than to fail later without that understanding.
Don’t pick her up when she falls, teach her how to get up on her own. She’s not a baby any more.
At least, I don’t *think* she is. She’s growing, and it’s difficult for a parent to calibrate from one day to the next their reaction to their children’s falls to accommodate the growth of the child. Yesterday, when she fell off her bike, she needed to be picked up. But does she need it today?
July 15, 2011 at 8:40 pm |
Not sure what the answer is. Having a deep fear of failure since I was a kid, I can’t say it’s served me well in adulthood, which of course is full of failures and disappointments. I’ve gotten better, but it’s still a challenge for me. But I was probably a sensitive, easily hurt kid too. And then there’s the asian parent thing, which is about our kids succeeding and avoiding shame. So, maybe teach her there’s no shame in failing, if you learn something from it? Hmmm – it’s a good thing I’m not a parent.
August 16, 2011 at 3:00 pm |
I also grew up with a deep fear of failure and an asian parent. Don’t know where it came from. Just knew that in my mind, failure meant disappointing the people I cared about. And if you disappoint them enough, they just might leave. I think I developed this idea before my parents actually divorced.
September 2, 2011 at 12:49 pm |
Rereading this post I’m reminded of Beth Murphy telling me aout her son, Owen’s efforts at ice skating. When he was learning to skate (age 3 or so) he would fall, but calmly get up and try again. After several falls one or other parent would offer to help and he would matter of factly say, “No. I don’t need help. I can do this.” and eventually he would. Apparently, this is how Owen approached most new things. Whatever skill or task it was he was very patient and didn’t get upset because he clearly believed that he would figure it out. His mom was kind of in awe of this.