Dutch expert to talk on ‘fear of failure’ in kids

PARENTS of adolescents, teachers, therapists and the children they care about are all invited to talks on “Fear of Failure” next week in Port Elizabeth.

A Dutch authority on the subject, Dr Ard Nieuwenbroek, will present two seminars, on Monday and Tuesday, at Grey Junior School in Mill Park.

Chrizelle Prinsloo, owner of Kip McGrath Education Centres in Walmer, and counselling psychologist Dr Tanya Defferary will host the talks by Nieuwenbroek, who has written 28 books on the subjects of fear of failure, childhood socio-emotional problems, contextual therapy, depression, divorce and family crisis.

“Fear of failure affects people of all ages and this affects children in a variety of ways, from struggling to make friends, to the fear of making a mistake in tests,” Prinsloo said.

“This often results in the child, or adult, remaining frozen and unable to initiate tasks. For parents and educators, helping a child who has fear of failure can be a big challenge.

“This talk will focus on addressing these challenges from a contextual perspective.”

Defferary met Nieuwenbroek in 2010 when he held his first introductory contextual therapy talk in PE, and since then has trained as a contextual therapist and has co-facilitated many workshops with him.

Defferary and Prinsloo would like to see parents and teachers able to help their children overcome their fear, and one part of this is to “normalise” mistakes. Prinsloo suggested a few tips, such as: Emphasise effort over ability; Encourage children to see each “failure” as an opportunity to learn and improve; Create opportunities where they can try new things “just for fun”, where success is not required; Teach your child to have self-compassion when they fail, by not allowing negative self-talk to take over their vocabulary; Help them to see the bigger picture. The talks are from 6 to 8pm, cost R200 per person and will be held in the Grey Junior School hall. The first seminar is aimed at parents, teachers and professionals including psychologists, speech therapists, audiologists and occupational therapists.

Tuesday’s talk is aimed at adolescents from Grade 6 to 12, and their parents.

More information: Prinsloo, 081-707-9822, e-mail: info@kipwalmer.co.za