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My 7 year old wanted to eat crêpes every morning for breakfast, but she didn’t like flipping them. She said she didn’t know how to do it, but she refused to learn. She didn’t want to make a mistake. After months of begging me, every morning, to stand at the stove and flip crêpes for an hour, I finally “forced” her to learn to do it herself. “But I’ll do it wrong and I don’t want to ruin them,” she cried! I reminded her of how she practiced flipping pancakes a year ago and she finally learned to do it. “If you ruin all of the crêpes then you can make another batch. Make a hundred ruined crêpes if that’s what it takes.” She sulked off to the kitchen to try it. 30 minutes later she excitedly ran to tell me, “Guess what Mom! I made four crêpes and only two of them were ruined!” Happy day!!! Now that she knows she is capable of making crêpes, she is practicing to make them right every time.

If your child plays the piano, he will spend many hours a week practicing. How many hours a week does he practice his chores? I thought I should be able to tell the kids to make their bed one time and they would do it just right forever after. Silly Momma! They have to practice it over and over and over. That means that sometimes they do an excellent job and sometimes they do a terrible job. If they do a good job I say, “Great! You made your bed!” If they do a terrible job because they are in a hurry I say, “I think you can do better than that. Try it again.”

When my children were small, they were not afraid of failure. They would dedicate their little hearts to achieve whatever they desired, but the older they get the more anxious they are about making mistakes. Since they weren’t born with this fear, then they learned it somewhere and, sadly, I think it was from me. I know I have been too impatient with them and too critical, but I am learning (I need practice too!) to let them make many mistakes and give them lots of time to practice.

There are no grades at our house. I either say, “You did it!” or, “Try again.” Of course I am not looking for perfection. Expecting perfection is discouraging for anyone and only makes them want to give up. I am looking for a good satisfactory effort. When my two year old makes her bed all she has to do is tug at the blanket a little bit to hear me say, “You did it! You made your bed!” When my older kids make their bed I expect things to be a little neater. What I want to see is progress over time and that can mean days, weeks, months or years.

Can you live with a couple wrinkles in your shirt while your child is learning to iron? Can you live with a less than perfectly manicured lawn in order for your child to have a chance to learn how to do yard work? I hope so!

As parents, we are not raising vegetables in our gardens, we are raising children there. Our gardens and homes are just tools that we use to teach our children lessons they need to learn. Take a deep breath when your child misses the sink and dumps her cereal bowl onto the floor. When your child is learning to ride a bike, sometimes you have to stand back a little and watch while she conquers her world one tumble at a time.

Learn to Fail

Teach Your Kids to Work
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

[tags]parenting, organization, home, cooking, teaching, kids, work [/tags]

Photo generously provided by the author, all rights reserved