No mistake: What to do with an oops

Every day someone makes some type of mistake – small ones, medium boo-boos, or even quite large slip-ups. Most adults manage these in different ways depending on their past experiences, coping skills and general demeanour.

During any day, most kids, whether they are youngsters or teenagers, likely experience an ìoopsî or two.

In my own interactions with students from very young to final teens, an “oops” can be found in spilling things, falling over or tripping, in letting gas go or saying something not intended.

Other common “oopsyî events are forgetting something important, being late for an appointment or not finishing something that needed completion.

For adults, in most cases of an “oops,” they can move on and let that situation disappear. For children, even teens, the outcome from the “oops” might linger on for the day or even several days, depending on the “right after” experiences.

How do adults learn how to successfully manage their “oops”? Likely they learned their coping skills from models such as parents, teachers or peers.

The learning situations probably were of the more invisible type where not much was said, but the body language and other subtle expressions were picked up by the observing person.

For children or teens, particularly where the “oopsy” situations cause embarrassment or an assault on their self-concept, when these occur, it is the opportunity for a “teachable moment.” A teachable moment operates as follows:

• The adult comments lightly but without judgement about the situation to the child or teen.

• Empathy is then added by telling the child that these happen to everyone.

• If possible, the adult then tells a short story when this happened to them.

• The important point after the story is to describe how they felt at the time because this can add to the empathy.

• Explaining how they then managed to let go or to find a way to minimize the situation offers an example of problem-solving.

• One good way is to demonstrate how humor can often defuse the embarrassment if the humour is directed either at the “oops” itself or the person themselves who experienced the “oops”. For example, the other day I was working with two children from Grade 3. They were painting using small bottles of liquid paint on to heavy art paper. One boy knocked a yellow bottle on to the floor. He moved his chair back and said something about the mess on the floor. So, I said to him, that looks like and “oops”. Then I said to him: “Do you think the floor feels messy like what you said?” Finally, I said, go get some wet paper towel and together we will un-mess the floor. He laughed and went to get the wet paper towels.

The oops moment is such a basic fact of everyone’s life that we can influence children and teens to manage these times successfully.

Dr. Steve Lydiatt is a practising educational psychologist. He has been a teacher, consultant in autism, university professor and director of a disabilities centre. His specialties include learning disabilities and children’s behaviour issues. He can be reached by email: drsteve.educistics@gmail.com.