Allowing Your Kid To Struggle
Email 1
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Teacups are beautiful, yet they’re very fragile and must be handled with extreme care. Today, university professors call our children just that, teacups. They see college students as very fragile because of overprotection. And while teacups are aesthetically pleasing, they are rarely used and of little value to us on a day to day basis.
As parents it’s hard to watch our children fail, so often we swoop in to make sure they don’t. In the process we create children that don’t know how to fail well. This month we want to process how we can STOP being our child’s superhero, and instead, allow them to develop the courage and problem solving skills to work through any issue life hands them. Check out this month’s video link to see a glimpse into WHY we need to allow our children to fail.
https://vimeo.com/parentministry/review/123492185/b35e13831e
Later this month we’ll delve more into how we can avoid swooping in to save the day, and we’ll take a look at what the Bible has to say about failure.
Partnering with you,
Children’s Pastor
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Current culture says to our children, you can be anything you want to be. The truth is they can TRY to be anything that they want, but they will fail. Our children, just like us, have been uniquely designed and created for purpose. One of the biggest ideas that will help us discover that purpose is working through failure.
We allow our children to fail when we STOP overparenting. Overparenting is actually a word, and we’ve created it. Here’s the definition:
We overparent when we are excessively involved in the day to day life of our children, typically in the desire to shield them from difficult situations and help them succeed.
Of course we want our children to succeed. A researcher named La Ferle says this of overparenting, “We take personally the things that happen to our kids, and if our kids succeed, we are successful parents. If they fail, it’s a bad reflection on us. If we can get over that, then that’s good. Sometimes we need to step back and not use our kids as trophies.”
The Bible is clear that we are NOT enough, and it’s a good thing. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 says, “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Let’s ban together, committing to STOP overparenting, allow our children to fail, learn from those failures, and find that true strength comes from God IN them.
Partnering with you,
Children’s Pastor
Video Script
I will go ahead and have a time of parenting confession. At times I am an overprotective parent.
I feel better just getting that out there, so now let me connect with other over protective parents watching this!
Anytime we take our kids hiking, camping, or to the lake with our family I am the parent looking out for all of the dangerous things that could possibly hurt one of our kids. I am the “be careful” police of our family and the honest truth is I have to be so very careful to not let that tendency bleed over into how I parent on a day to day basis. This month in our Online Parenting Class we are going to talk about how we can let our kids fail. I know you don’t read many book on this subject and maybe fail is too hard of a word but this month we hope we can all link arms together and find the freedom to at least not solve all of our kids problems and allow them to struggle!
Parents today are obsessed with affirmation and success when it comes to how they parent. We want our children to be encouraged, and we want them to succeed. Think about the culture our children are surrounded by. Every kid on the soccer or baseball team get’s a trophy just for trying. Every kid gets a ribbon at field day for just showing up. As parents we are fine with this because we do our best to help our kids succeed and feel affirmed. The question we have to wrestle with this month is when do we allow our children to feel the sting of failure while we are in their life to coach them through it?
Our generation of parents has created two new “kinds of parents” helicopter parents (those who hover around and swoop in at the first sign of trouble) and lawnmower parents (seek to smooth out every situation that could cause stress). We have all seen these parents but the reality is that we often give in to the trap of overprotection because we see everyone else going that direction.
I was reading a blog post on the Huffington Post recently and a writer was talking about this very issue. They said…
”There’s an old Chinese saying, “Failure is the mother of success.” You don’t have to look far in our culture to find celebrated examples of this very notion: Einstein is rumored to have flunked math for years; Steve Jobs was fired from the company he started, only to return a few years later and take Apple to new heights; Walt Disney himself was fired early in his career by a newspaper editor who told him that he “had no imagination and no good ideas.”
Failure can be a good thing in the life of your child because failure pushes kids to learn not to shape their identity and worth around their accomplishments. Failure pushes us to learn. Failure pushes us to seek advice from trusted voices. Failure even pushes us to trust God. Sounds crazy but listen to what one person from the Bible says in the book of Psalms…
Psalm 46:1 (NLT) God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble.
That is what failure is for our kids…it’s trouble…and God is there to help. I will never forget when my oldest daughter was struggling at school to run her timed mile in PE. She stressed over it. She cried. She was angry at that stop watch. She failed two times. Everything in me wanted to go to the school and step in for her but I didn’t. We prayed and she tried harder and she finally got it. I could have derailed a teachable moment by stepping in! Our tendency is to step in too early.
This month your assignment is simple. Evaluate your parenting and process if you are overprotecting your kids from failure. Later this month we will send you some practical advice on how to help your child fail well. But until then look for an opportunity this week to step back and not solve a problem for your child. We are praying for you as you work hard to be a better parent! You can do this!
Weekly tweets from you to parents:
TIP: Choose a hashtag for your tweets and use it consistently. That will tell twitter to store a list of your tweets in one place for later reference.
TWEET #1- When do we allow our children to feel the sting of failure while we are in their life to coach them through it? #urchurchparentministry
TWEET #2- Failure pushes kids to learn to shape their identity and worth around their accomplishments #urchurchparentministry
TWEET #3-Can children really BE anything they want to BE? #createdforpurpose #urchurchparentministry
TWEET #4 –A helicopter parent is one who constantly hovers around their child and swoops in at the first sign of trouble. #urchurchparentministry
TWEET #5- Have you had an opportunity this week to NOT save your child from failure? #urchurchparentministry
TWEET #6-A lawnmower parent is one who always wants to smooth things over so their children don’t experience the rough parts of life. #urchurchparentministry
TWEET #7-Jesus said HIS strength is made perfect in weakness, and Paul concluded he would boast in His weakness. #urchurchparentministry
TWEET #8-Famous old Chinese proverb, Failure is the mother of success. Parents, allow failure! #urchurchparentministry
TWEET #9- Success isn’t final, failure isn’t fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts-Winston Churchill#urchurchparentministry
TWEET #10-Are we content with hardships and failure, allowing to be strong in weakness? 2 Corinthians 12:10 #urchurchparentministry