How to Teach Kids to Learn From Their Mistakes?

How to Teach Kids to Learn From Their Mistakes? 

Written By: Vidhya Shree            

Published: Saturday, September 13, 2014, 

For parents, from the moment a child is born they constantly look for ways to nurture, teach, support, and provide enough for them. Though it might seem uncomfortable to some, parents also need to let their children make mistakes. Letting children learn from their mistakes helps them build resilience. This is essential for the kid to become a confident, happy, and a successful adult. 

Making mistakes and realizing them is an important learning process in life. It is important to teach a child that making mistakes is not the end of th world, and that they can use mistakes as a tool to learn and find better ways to be successful. 

The following are different ways parents can help children to learn from their mistakes: 

Do not stop them from trying new challenges: 

Allowing children to struggle and sometimes fail will let them develop important social and emotional skills. Your role as a parent should be to support and guide them. You should let them learn for themselves. It is during the phase of challenge that a child has the opportunity to develop coping and resilience skills. 

Show a child that a mistake is an opportunity to learn: 

Children tend to feel discouraged when they fail at something or make a mistake. Sometimes they also tend to interpret the mistakes they made as a failure. Parents need to show them mistakes are simply and opportunity to learn and perform better. 

Discuss with them about the mistakes they have made: 

Do not chastise children and tell them about their wrong deed, instead discuss with them about how they can avoid similar mistakes from happening in the future. Make them realise that mistakes can be fixed and they can learn from that situation.

Help them realise that mistakes can be fixed: 

It is always important to teach your child to admit their mistakes. Work with your child so that they understand the ways to fix a mistake. For a young child it can be difficult to realise that mistakes can be corrected. Working on helping them fix mistakes can avoid a lot of future frustration for them. 

Avoid being overly dramatic about the mistakes they might make: 

Being mellow over their mistakes can be a constructive step to deal with them. Being over reactive about it can make them feel that mistakes they have made is much worse than what it really is. Give proper response to their mistakes, this will help them model their own behaviour and expectations. 

Let them deal with their problems: 

It is important for children to learn from their own actions, emotions, problems and compromise. If parents step-in to fix those problems, children loose out critical skill-building. Those children who don't have opportunities to struggle have lower self-confidence. The fear of failure makes them less willing to try new things. 

Providing the child opportunities to develop resilience and coping skills in a supportive environment is the best way to prepare a child for life's challenges.