Learning From Failure
When I posted a lengthy story/interview with author Lenore Skenazy — who wrote Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry — I neglected to include on this blog a YouTube video that she prominently mentioned in her book.
Arguing that parents shouldn’t try to protect their children from every risk, thereby robbing them of valuable learning opportunities, Skenazy said that encouraging an “If I fail, so what? I will try again” mindset is considered to be a child’s “surest path to success.”
I finally looked up the “Life=Risk” video she mentioned in her chapter, “Fail! It’s the New Succeed.” And I think I’m going to keep it bookmarked and pull it up onto the computer screen the next time one of my Picket Fence Post kids is feeling down or discouraged.
Author and columnist Meredith O'Brien gives you a peek behind the picket fences of modern day life and parenting in the 'burbs. With humor and candor, it's her take on real parenting in the real world.
I have not read Lenore Skenazy’s book, so perhaps my ranting is one-sided.
What I don’t like about Lenore Skenazy is that she says crime rates are the same as they were in the 1970’s, when we were kids. What does that prove? Crime in cities and/or suburbs or crime combined nationwide? That’s a pretty general statement to make. What kind of crime? How has the type of crime changed? Define “Crime”…Drug arrests? Child abductions? White collar crime? Drive-by-shootings? Domestic abuse? Is this statistic supposed to make parents feel better? I don’t think so.
Maybe I’m just oversensitive because I witnessed the sadness my hometown endured when a sweet nine year old girl, Sarah Pryor, was abducted from a busy suburban street. Part of her remains were found 13 years later buried in the other side of my hometown. Maybe I’m just oversensitive because in the same hometown, alone, at about the same age as Sarah Pryor, I was approached by a strange man and asked if I needed a ride. I was lucky and got away.
Would you have let one of your nine year-olds ride a NYC subway alone? Do you let them walk suburban streets alone?
Comment by Kris Spazz — June 30, 2009 @ 4:03 pm
There are good points on both sides of the parenting spectrum. There is no doubt that there are also extremes of overprotective parents aa well as negligent uninvolved one. To have a parent involved in speaking to potential employers for their child’s job interviews is too much. To have a “young” child home alone after school may be too little. But the correct level of parent invovlement/oversight is likely different for every kid, parent and situation.
I might let my nine year old walk the suburban neighborhood streets alone, or with friends. I used to ride the public bus alone in an urban area when I was 10 and the T to Boston with firends when I was 12. We do need to encourage, even teach our children independence so that they learn to sense danger and how to react. We need to also be wary of dangers, our kids abilities and the environment we live in. However, there are real costs to our children’s development when as parents we overprotect them. My first roommate at college was a very well reared student with apparently very involved caring parents. She was the one who partied heartily with the new freedoms and was no able to return to school for the second semester.
In the end, I think we need to stop asking ourselves solely “why wouldn’t you do something to protect your children?” and instead ask “is the benefit of my protection/assistance worth the risk of hampering my child’s development and future capabilities?”.
Comment by Trish — July 8, 2009 @ 1:43 pm