Serene Sunday - Lessons for Our Children - It's OK to Fail

Serene Sunday - it is important to teach our children it is ok to fail and then keep going.

Each Serene Sunday throughout the month of December will be devoted to exploring lessons for our children. As a mother of four, lessons for children are a large part of my daily existence. With this series, you will see a little about my parenting philosophy. My children will have a written record to share with their spouses and therapists to show why and how they turned out as they did.

photo credit: Krissy.Venosdale via photopin cc                                                                           Serene Sunday, failure, success, lessons, children, learn, continue

The lessons for the Serene Sunday series for December are the following:

       It is OK to Fail
      Get all You Can, Can All You Get
      Be a Friend to Yourself
      Don't Get Ready, Stay Ready
      One Monkey Don't No Show

These are not lessons I created myself, they are lessons I learned along the way and am now sharing with my children.

As parents, we all want our children to strive for greatness. Greatness is fluid which means it varies from person to person. Along the way to greatness, failure is a frequent visitor. It is important that while teaching our  children to aim for the stars that sometimes they will miss. When our children fail to reach a goal or achieve a level of success, it is natural for them to feel disappointed, scared or ill at ease. As parents, it is our job to teach our children that after failure, life continues.

As with all things, when teaching children that life goes on after failure, be sure to speak at their level. When my twins who are in kindergarden cannot spell a word correctly. I tell them, "It is ok you messed up. Everybody messes up sometimes. Remember when I made that dinner that was really nasty and we had to order pizza? Did I stop cooking? No I made dinner again the next day and remember that chicken was really good?"  Five year olds can understand this idea easily. Unfortunately, they also remember that nasty dinner!

Serene Sunday, failure, success, lessons, children, learn, continue

If we teach our children it is ok to fail and that even parents fail sometimes and keep going, failure will be seen as a step along the way, instead of the end of the road. So the question for you this Serene Sunday is how do you teach your children to deal with failure?