LET’S LOOK AT FAILURE DIFFERENTLY!

“Children interpret failure very differently and are influenced by the reaction of their parents. When parents view failure as catastrophe all hell breaks loose, and the child’s self-esteem is badly punctured. When a child is in distress or fails, hug him/ her a little longer and a little stronger. Acceptance is important for resolving pain and moving ahead with logical solutions. Parents need to realise that no educational board can completely assess the talent in their children. Infinite belief in children will help them flower and grow.” Dr. Harish Shetty Child Psychiatrist

Ayush is a class five student from a school located in the heart of the city. Like every other parent, Ayush’s parents, Ramesh and Rahini, too wanted their son to be an all-rounder. They wanted him to excel in all the fields, such as studies, sports and arts. Ramesh and Rahini wanted the best for Ayush and enrolled him for special coaching classes to learn and hone his skills. In addition to academics, Ayush went for cricket coaching classes (twice a week), dance classes (twice a week), keyboard classes (thrice a week) besides attending abacus and other academic sessions. He also participated in competitions and events to test his skills in a competitive environment. Ayush took part in all those events and performed to the best of his abilities. However, he couldn’t win every time and had more failures than successes.

While Ayush was good with academics, he wasn’t amongst the top three in class despite his best efforts. Ayush started looking at all this as a personal failure and got more demoralised with every passing week. Ramesh and Rahini were obviously worried as they had no idea how to put Ayush back on track. They wanted Ayush to not give up and continue to do extra-curricular activities such as sports, music, etc. The neighbours and his relatives didn’t help much and checked to see how Ayush was doing. Because of which, he felt ridiculed and even more demoralised. Ramesh and Rahini couldn’t take it any further but avoided discussing about it in public as they didn’t want Ayush to feel more disappointed than he already was.

Today’s children live in an environment where competition is inevitable in all the fields. Parents don’t hesitate to do anything at their disposal to equip kids with skills required to succeed in life. The constant desire to excel and looming fear of failure put children in a pressure-cooker situation. A startling revelation by a recently conducted survey indicates that 67 per cent children are engulfed by fear of defeat. Subconsciously, several parents tend to look at their children as a vehicle to achieve the dreams which they couldn’t. Ayush’s story is just another example of this and plays out with millions of children everyday across India. Children feel that they are expected to excel in everything they do and cannot handle failure well. Handling failure is a key life skill that children need to learn.

We are living in a society which is very achievement oriented. Parents realise this and try to ensure that their children are brought up in a way that sets them up for success in the future. This instils the fear of failure in children’s minds. Failure is an important part of their academic journey and learning things. By learning to deal with failure, one also imbibes many important qualities needed in life, such as resilience, grit and perseverance. By changing their outlook towards failure and treating it as great learning experience, parents can create a conducive learning atmosphere for children.

There is nothing called failure; it is only a lesson for us in life. Surf Excel as a brand has always believed that if you get dirty by doing good, then dirt is good. This brand philosophy only extends itself by telling parents that if kids get dirty in learning to defeat failure, then dirt is good.