Ten-year-old Kaylee
rarely blundered. Apart from a few small errors committed under her mother’s
radar, her slate was clean.
Managing this state
of near perfection required a tremendous amount of vigilance and work on
everyone’s part, including her parents’. Every friend had to be carefully
monitored and continuously assessed. Each homework assignment, book report, and
science fair project necessitated high levels of vigilance so that the adults
in Kaylee's life could help her detect and correct errors before drafts landed
on her teachers’ desks. Participation in sports always led to significant
financial sacrifices, since private lessons were the only way she could learn
to run, jump, throw, hit, and catch, without error.
Kaylee’s parents were dedicated to engineering success… a type of success not created organically through trial and error… but from the fragile thread of good intentions.
Is this a sustainable plan, or will Kaylee’s parents eventually lose their ability to engineer success?
Does Kaylee truly believe she has what it takes to overcome failures, or does she live in fear that one might someday come her way? Have you ever met an adult who was raised this way? Do these adults demonstrate high levels of perseverance when the going gets tough, or do they avoid challenges like the plague?
What are the societal and economic impacts of raising children like Kaylee? Who are the most successful people you personally know? Have they always been successful, or have they experienced a good degree of failure?
Kaylee’s parents were dedicated to engineering success… a type of success not created organically through trial and error… but from the fragile thread of good intentions.
Is this a sustainable plan, or will Kaylee’s parents eventually lose their ability to engineer success?
Does Kaylee truly believe she has what it takes to overcome failures, or does she live in fear that one might someday come her way? Have you ever met an adult who was raised this way? Do these adults demonstrate high levels of perseverance when the going gets tough, or do they avoid challenges like the plague?
What are the societal and economic impacts of raising children like Kaylee? Who are the most successful people you personally know? Have they always been successful, or have they experienced a good degree of failure?
At the heart of all
science and all great innovation are risk and resulting failure. The data of
each successive failure informs the path to success. As a country are we
raising kids who understand this process and are therefore truly prepared to
discover greatness or are we creating young people who are too fearful to walk
this path? Parents and educators
dedicated to raising tomorrow’s great thinkers and doers understand that all
children need:
1. encouragement to grapple
with unanswered questions, to use a sewing machine, to explore the ins and outs
of cooking a complex meal, to play group sports, to use a microscope, to fix a
bike, to do homework, and to complete other tasks with as little adult interference
as possible.
2. us to place greater
emphasis on taking healthy risks and persevering through failure than on
stellar grades, great fashion, and athletic stardom.
3. to make plenty of
affordable mistakes over basic hygiene, homework, money management, social
interactions, and other daily matters.
4. parents brave and loving
enough to allow these wonderful failures even when criticized by more socially
appropriate and politically correct parents.
5. to experience the logical
and natural consequences of their failed choices.
6. to simultaneously
experience sincere empathy and unconditional love.
7. guidance to see that
success is earned by having the guts to fail and learn more frequently than the
average person.
8. adults who show them that
failure is not final… it’s informative.
Dr. Charles Fay
https://www.loveandlogic.com/
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