I'm a Terrible Parent for Teaching My Kids How to Fail

Frankly, I don't get the need to hold graduation parties for kindergarteners. I know, we're supposed to teach our kids to succeed and nurture their self-esteem, but I didn't want to raise special little princesses. My kids got high-fives for striving and trying hard things, even if they crashed and burned. When they moped about the crash, they got a kick in the seat.

Too many people get wrapped up in the notion that failure is bad. It is not. The reaction to failure determines the value. Champions don't take failure personally. They understand that failure is feedback that the course you're on will not get you to the goals that you seek. The feedback itself is emotionally neutral and impartial. Understand the feedback, and make the corrections.

This is called learning. 

I do not know any successful person who did not fail first, sometime spectacularly. No runner breaks the four-minute mile without missing the mark a thousand times first. No inventor perfects a device on the first idea. Business get built by professional failures. Authors who are overnight successes have a decade of failed efforts behind them.

No one lives a life on unending successes, and children who are never allowed to experience the opposite of success never develop the resiliency and perseverance to handle adversities.

I encouraged the girls to "fail faster." That is, try things, evaluate, learn, move on to the next challenge. Grow.

So yes, I taught my girls to fail. Or, more accurately, how to fail.