Latest / Let Them Fly - Heather Harries Ed Hub / Why we should let children fail

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Why we should let children fail · Let Them Fly - Heather Harries Ed Hub

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning and welcome to the podcast Let Them Fly.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: We have Nicole joining us today and she's a mum of two children and we're going to look today and address the issue of letting your children fail.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: But what if they fall?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: But darling, what if they fly?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: I love that quote.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: We were talking about it earlier, and I think it is so important to let your children be able to fail.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Totally agree.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with always being successful is they don't learn how to fail.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And from failure is where we learn our we learn how to make mistakes and we learn how to get better.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the problems as parents is that we're always trying to solve children's problems.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, a hundred percent.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I listened to a podcast not long ago, and the lady was saying she has a great phrase and it was try three before me.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: So she always said to her children, and it works with husbands as well, right?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Your husband can never find his car keys.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: You literally say, try three before me.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: That is such an amazing idea.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think so I think it also g gives children more resilience because one of the problems is that children rely on you so much.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Mum, I can't do it.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Mum wears this, Mum, I haven't got, mum, and I think it's really important that we we do, and I love that.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So try three before me.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: That is brilliant.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: It is really easy to just step in all the time and and rescue them.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, sometimes they can't put their shoes on, and we just do it for them because I need to get out of the door, you know, we've got to get to work.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, try three before me, try and hold your breath and stay.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think they need more support to fail.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the hardest things is you watch your child fall and you watch them fail, and your natural maternal instinct is to go and pick them up and and make it it okay.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: But the more we do that, the less they learn, and the less times it is actually okay.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like failure, it builds resilience, it builds self-esteem.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: They have to learn to fail.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think some of the schools these days they're doing, oh, everybody wins, but no, no, everyone doesn't win.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't teach my children this.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: We all come first because when they go for a job interview, they don't come third.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you win the job or or you don't win the job.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: So they need to learn how to, you know.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's absolutely true.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we get so many parents that phone up and they're they're saying, Oh, my child is failing, my child isn't working, my child isn't doing this, they're not getting a grade nine in their exams.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how do I solve the problem?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And my answer to the parent is always it's not how do I solve the problem, it's how do they solve the problem and what do they want to do about solving that problem.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And unless a child has ownership of a problem, yeah, they really are never going to go on, pick it up, and want to succeed.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think what we do in our household, we we celebrate wins, but we always celebrate them losing as well.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like I they do understand the difference between winning and losing.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: We we go winner, winner, chicken dinner.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to do that again for us, for the community actions.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's a shame it's putting us.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my little chicken wings.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: But we also, you know, say we we cheer them if they lose.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: So and that that's fine.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we say, what can we we learn?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: And weld them for taking part, and and just we appreciate and celebrate that opportunity for for just taking part and being in the race or being in the game.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: I totally agree.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think you know, failure is is failure, and you could she shouldn't be dressing it up.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yes, you didn't do as well as you could.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: What could you have done better?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's really important at that point that a child takes responsibility, and it doesn't matter how old that child is, the answer is that they take responsibility for what's going on and what went wrong.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, again, I I read something not long ago, uh, you know, whilst raising kids, you read a lot of these mummy things.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it said when we grew up, we got a lot of, oh, well done, we're so proud of you.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, I read something to say, well, you're only just feeding them one layer of that you're proud of them.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, it's better to ask questions to them.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: How how do you feel?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Are you happy?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Are you proud?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like and or well done for trying hard.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: More more multi-layers rather than just saying, Yeah, you're so clever, you know.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's really important, is it's about children exploring their feelings.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how does losing make you feel?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: How does winning make you feel?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what we want them to do is we want them to become addicted to that feeling of winning, that feeling of doing really well, of making themselves proud.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't matter.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we all think we'll be around forever, but actually we won't.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really important that as parents you make a child not be proud for you because they must be proud for themselves first.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think they need to be supported with that what like a gross mindset, I guess.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know, my children will sometimes say, Oh, green beans will they look gross.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, But imagine if you never tried chocolate because it was brown, right?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: And they associate brown with poo.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: So my but you tried chocolate once upon a time, so how do you know if you know you know, champion them to believe that, oh, this could be let's have a go, let's let's try something.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay to try.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: You spit the green beans out, it's okay.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: We'll try again another time, you know.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, giving them food.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're winning and losing.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, totally agree.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I my my mantra has always been to never look back and say, I wish.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I've always put that on to my children.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: I said, you know, say yes.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter what it is, I mean, as long as it's good, obviously, but say yes, because yes leads you to more experiences.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, quite often a child will say, But what if I don't make it?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: What if I don't win the race?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: But what if you do win the race?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think one of the girls before was saying, like, fail you're failing forward.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's such a good thing to think of because it is just another step to to getting better.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like kids have to, I always say to them, but you're learning.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: They'll say, Oh, I didn't do it right, or you know, my daughter loves drawing and she'll draw the tail wrong and she'll scrimple the whole thing up.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I say, It's okay, that cat can have a quirky tail.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Next time you can learn to draw it, you know, in the right direction rather than coming out its ear.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it it's just about yeah, supporting their their attempts really, and then go forward.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I totally agree with that.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think one of the problems is that if they don't fail, they've never done anything because nobody is perfect first time round.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you try to encourage a child to think that they will be perfect at something, they won't do it because the fear of failure becomes too big.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: If they're used to not getting top marks, they're used to not being able to hit the tennis ball with their tennis racket or not score the first goal, they will keep trying.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you engineer it so that it's always excellent, they actually get to the point where failure becomes a much bigger thing.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not part of their makeup anymore.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think I think that's how we have to champion it.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like if they're afraid to never try, then they're just never gonna do anything.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: They're never gonna, you know, get up and put the skis on and fall down.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think kids actually, when you look at them, the amount of times they actually fall on the floor, especially when they're learning to walk, they just get up and they keep going.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like toddlers, they must fall down 3,000 times a day.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think for kids to keep going, it's easier than than an adult.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we get in our own head when we're bigger and it and it and it really puts us off where kids definitely have more resilience than I think to keep going than an adult.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's important that as parents you you champion their resilience.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I always I get a lot of parents that phone up, you know, and they're going to fail their GCSEs or they're gonna fail their mocks.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I always say, let them fail.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: If they're in year 10, let them fail.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the parents are, no, no, no, they can't, they can't fail.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: How are they going to feel?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, exactly how are they going to feel?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: But but they they might give up.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: I said, they might not give up, but they might take ownership.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is, you know, parents want to solve that problem.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: They want their children to get top marks all the time.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And by wanting that, they're never allowing that child to learn.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll say to a parent quite often, you tutor a child now, you're going to be tutoring them through university as well.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I, you know, I'd love to take a leaf out of my own book on that sometimes because my children, you know, I my middle child particularly, I was always all about, oh no, I've got to get him up, I've got to get him sorted, I've got to not let the big one shout at him, I've got to not let the big one feel, you know, feed his his insecurity.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and I learned my lessons that actually failing was the biggest lesson they had to learn.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I I've I've had the pleasure of of uh seeing you talk at events and and you talked about your children failing.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's it's so important because you know parents stressed that, oh, that the kids are going to fail exams, but so many people have done well from failing their exams.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you even asked a question of who has a degree and actually has a job in that subject.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And there was like two people in the room that put their hands up and okay, do you know what?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: They might have passed their degree, but actually they've failed getting a job in that subject and they've still gone on to have careers and have really good jobs, and the same when you fail your exams, there is life after exams, you know, that there's there's so many opportunities.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's about being on the right path.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think unless a child is all-rounded, they will never make that own path for for themselves, you know.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and sport is a particularly good way of encouraging children to fail.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they will always be a winner and loser in a game of rugby or a game of football or tennis or gymnastics.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so important that they take part and that they get both sides of that.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think as well, it's it's harder to fail than it is to lose.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like if everything someone was saying, if if you're if everything goes well, you actually don't learn something.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's when you start failing that you that you start to question and learn what can I do better.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you just run a race and you run and you win, you just have that elated feeling of, woohoo, I've won.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: If you've fallen down, your body's had to go through get up, like get up, mentally be stronger to win the race.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: And next time, okay, I'm I'm gonna tie my shoelaces tighter so they don't come under, and I'm gonna try not to fall, I'm going to focus.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's a more of a process to going into failing than there is to just winning every time.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, I totally agree.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and and that goes for everything from you know, I and we have parents that come through that we work with where they're too scared to let their children do sport.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: They may get hurt.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: But what else are they learning from getting hurt or from taking part?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what I've learned is that children bounce.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the bones don't break, they just kind of bend a little bit.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, again, children will get hurt and it is hard.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: We stand at the bottom of the slide and the swing, and I think our anxiety is is higher than theirs.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, my daughter broke her collarbone.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't even take her to the hospital because she literally was like, I'm fine.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the next day I was like, You look a bit strange.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: And she'd she'd broken it, but it was just bent.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I said to the doctor, like, she she wants to get on the trampoline.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Well, it's not hurting her.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas again, you know, as an adult, when we break our bone, we sit there with our leg up for six weeks whinging.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas kids break a bone and they're just on the trampoline the next day and they just soon spikes.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: They are gonna they are gonna get hurt and we have to protect them from extremely dangerous things.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: But again, it's hard as a parent to sit back and let your child fail, but it's where they're gonna learn their most their most lessons.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there is there is a sort of uh test for failing where you you give your child something that's quite difficult to do and you say to them, go and do it.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if they say, I can't, you know that you've got to work harder.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because for a child to say, I can't, it's kind of always writing off their life before they start.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: For me, I I want a child to say, I can be a footballer, I can be an astronaut, I can be a train driver, I can be, because that's about them having a grasp and a thirst for life and ambition.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: That fear of failure, failure, will stop them having that ambition.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think what's important is to keep pushing them to go.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we started my daughter in gymnastics and she loved it, and then she just kept saying, I can't do this, I really don't want to go back.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Whilst I didn't want to force her into an environment, she wasn't happy with, we looked at other gymnastics and she started one on the weekend and she absolutely loved it.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I think sometimes it can be environmental and and they get into their head, or the the room is scary, or they don't like the teacher.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as long as we keep saying, okay, we don't just quit and leave gymnastics, let's find a different coach, let's find someone that's you know, this class is much smaller than when we were going.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's it's is more suited to her personality because the other class was really overwhelming.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's just that there is a journey, even as a parent, we took her somewhere that was way too advanced, you know.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: The Olympic coaches and it was her first lesson.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so we I really stumbles on a band trample.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I feel like we failed as a parent putting her into something so big at the age of four she was when she started.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, so it's okay.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: It failed, we tried and we moved to a different one.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's going fingers crossed much better.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes actually the dreams of parents can mean quite over-ambitious sometimes.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we have to manage our expectations about the age and and what of the child.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: But but don't ever manage your child's expectations because your child will believe they can do it.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you say, go and do this, your child should have that true belief that they can achieve it.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so and she'll go to school and be like, I could do gymnastics, I could do a cartwheel.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's embarrassing.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not, it's not yet.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: She's so proud of that achievement.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: She's so proud of it, but she just like flops on her face and she just keep again, they just keep get, you know, they get back up and they keep on going.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And she'll keep trying and see how gets it perfect, and when it's perfect, she'll know.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean I think, you know, w our discussion here is is all arriving around, you know, your child it's your child's life.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's your child can make it as big or small as they want.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a very good friend who's who's a footballer and he never had a plan B.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: He had a plan A.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think it's really important that whatever your child wants to do, they should be told they can do it.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if they have a bump in the road or they have a setback on the way, it doesn't matter as long as that plan is still enabled through even a slightly different route.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we can't always move forward, but we can sometimes move diagonally to get to that same point.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think my top tip for parenting on failure is is um avoid watching them.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I I pay for all these classes, and when you go and watch, you can get annoyed when they they're not trying or they they talk to their mates, or they run out and they go to the toilet for, you know, the third time in the class, and you're like, why am I paying for my son to roll around on a football at eight o'clock on a Saturday morning?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: I found it's much easier to one, not be there as a parent because I think that they use you as like hiding behind them.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then two, if I don't have to see them rolling around on a football, I just think in my head that they've done an amazing football class and learn everything.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I but I think that's true.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's very easy because mum's always solve my problems.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let me go back to mum and mum mum's going to tell the the coach that he's being he's asking me to run too far, or he's asking me to do something I don't want to do.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: But no, you absolutely can't because that's all part of that learning process.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's very you know, the thing that we need we're taking away really is failing isn't failing, failing's learning.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at it in that terminology, it's a completely different picture that we're painting.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think again, it's just coming back to that championing them for failing.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: We always celebrate them failing, even when we're, you know, they fall over or they don't get it right, it's like it's okay, we'll keep trying.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: We're that that's part of life.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't just try once and and you can stand in a handstand for 10 seconds, you know, like you have to learn, you have to build their muscles and and and just just keep continuing down that little path, really.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: So what we're saying today, uh takeaway from our podcast today, all about let them fly, is let them fail, because failing is part of that journey to making them better people and stronger and more resilient and actually more successful in the long run.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Anything you want to add to today?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think my key takeaway is as parents, it's hard.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably harder for us to watch them fail and let them fail.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And every parent wants their kid to win the sports race.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just as a parent stepping back, they they are gonna bounce, they, you know, they are gonna get there.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just just holding your breath for a few minutes and letting them letting them fail and supporting them through the failures, point it, helping them to point their own failures out and their own path to you know improving, and then celebrating those wins and the winner-winner chicken dinner.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm taking away from you, try three before me.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely love that.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is the best advice I think I will ever hear from a parent.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be sharing that across the world, but I but I'm talking to all my different parents.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you very much today.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've winged yet another episode.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: We are we are gradually getting better at the equipment.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so please join us again for our next episode of Let Them Fly.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: We hope you're enjoying the episode so far of Let Them Fly.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we look forward to joining us next week when we address maths anxiety.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, it is real.