Perseverance, determination, problem solving abilities: these are all positive attributes we hope our children will develop and use effectively as adults. I’ve been thinking about how we can best help our children work toward those goals. This was spurred by two recent conversations. The first was with a person I know from work. She related an experience that changed the way she approaches parenting i.e. letting her children struggle through a problem without rescuing them. She tells her children “it is okay to struggle, it is not okay to give up.” It has been hard for me to watch that in action, but it has also given me cause to examine my own parenting and how I treat children in my professional life. So much so that when my adult daughter asked me several weeks later what my greatest parenting regret was, I quickly responded “I didn’t let you struggle enough”.
Why struggling is important
Life is full of constant challenges and choices, some small and some that become defining moments in our lives. The reality is that if you have never struggle or experience failure as a child, it will be hard to know what to do as an adult. One can become overwhelmed and stuck. The idea that success is a standard in life is an illusion. We all experience failure and disappointment. Mistakes are valuable. They give children and adults the opportunity to communicate, ask questions, get feedback and reflect on previous thoughts and actions.
Children learn by doing. Doing builds connections in the brain that not only help with the task at hand but can also be generalized to other life situations. As a result, struggling can enhance intellectual growth and development. As cliché as it sounds, practice DOES make perfect (or at least better)! Struggling to accomplish tasks can shape identity and build pride through achieving goals. It builds confidence, independence and emotional strength. Pride in oneself and feelings of accomplishment can be harder to accomplish if there is no failure against which to judge your success.
Struggling builds resilience. We learn every time we fail. I often hear stories of how a life failure changed the direction of someone’s life for the better and have experienced this myself. As hard as those disappointments were at the time, would I go back and change them? When I reflect on where those struggles led, the answer to that would most often be no.
The problems with helping too much
As parents, we have a natural tendency to protect our children. It is hard to watch children try their hardest and not achieve their goal. We come to parenthood with our own childhood experiences. By not letting our children struggle, we may feel that we are protecting them from the hurt we experienced or trying to right what went wrong in our other relationships. There are several problematic outcomes that can result from thinking and interacting with our children this way. Rescuing children from unhappiness and struggle all the time can lead to dependency on others. Children become needy, holding others responsible for the bad outcomes in their life and looking to others to fix everything for them. Lack of problem solving skills can increase a child’s vulnerability to abusing alcohol and drugs or to victimization by others. And it can reduce a child’s self-esteem, just the opposite of what the parent is trying to accomplish. As human beings we are so quick to identify our failures and less apt to identify our successes. Recognizing the struggle to succeed after failure identifies personal growth and can be highly esteem building.
Some final notes
Allowing children to struggle does not mean parents never offer guidance or help. It is still our job to teach and consult when needed. Children need parameters to function within. And it is our responsibility to share our values and beliefs. To not do so leaves children boundary-less and adrift.
It is also important for children to feel comfortable asking for help when needed. Many adults have difficulty verbalizing needs. This can lead to unfortunate consequences. Remember, help can come in many forms and what a child needs may not be what you assume it is. A request for help can lead to more open communication and teaching about how to get needs met.
Here are some resources to get you started thinking about the importance of struggling:
https://www.loveandlogic.com/about/fact-sheet
http://www.fosteringresilience.com/
Fall down 7 times, get up 8-Japanese proverb
