SHOULD WE LET OUR KIDS FAIL?
Should we let our kids fail? Is there such a thing as sheltering your kids too much? I never really thought too much about it until I started helping my oldest daughter with her college application process. Part of the college application process calls for a personal statement to be written by the prospective student. The statement is a chance for the student to describe themselves to the administrators reviewing the application. Normally the student is asked to describe a life changing event, or a time when he or she rallied for worthwhile cause. If not any of those choices, then they might be asked to describe an accomplishment that marked their transformation into adulthood or reflect upon a time when they experienced failure and what affect that had on the child.
As my daughter and I bounced around these “themes”, we realized that there weren’t all that many life defining moments that stood out for her. There were no sporting accomplishments to speak of except for the one time we signed them up for a pee-wee soccer league. We quickly found, at a very early age, that any activity requiring a nominal amount of physical activity causing even the slightest extent of fatigue and perspiration, was not in our childrens’ future. There were no major failures that we could think of, as her mom and I desperately avoided placing our children in situations that might cause them to fail. Sure, there were things like the 5th grade girls basketball team, which I helped coach to a one-win season and there was the time when I convinced my oldest to join the high school girls golf team during her sophomore year. After spending cash on new golf clubs, shoes, lessons and outfits, yes girls need “outfits” for golf, this new hobby lasted all of one season. I blame myself, I failed to inform her that she would indeed be required to employ some physical movement and, quite possibly, that this would result in the secretion of moisture on and around the forehead as well as some dampness underneath the arms. She quit after one season which was unfortunate since I was looking forward to playing golf with her well into my golden years. She had a nice swing too.
The more we pondered the situation, the more we began to realize that that nothing really bad, traumatic or life changing has happened to her yet. I quickly began throwing out some distant memories like the time I served as a chaperone for her group of friends from high school. As I went to meet my daughter and her friends before getting on the bus, I introduced myself to one of her male friends. His first words to me were, “Oh, I thought that you would be taller”. To which I replied, “I’m sorry to disappoint you”. My being short really wasn’t enough to warrant a 650-word personal narrative for a college application, but what if she were to throw in the fact that her dad is also bald? That’s right, I’m so bald that I shave my head because, let’s face it, what else am I going to do? I know this caused some commentaries in the past because almost every time I’ve gone on one of those field trips, and I’ve been on many of them, there inevitably were questions regarding my baldness. Hey, I’m just glad I was able to amuse half a dozen Ritalin induced teenagers for a few hours. Despite my shortcomings, we still didn’t think we had enough material for a solid personal statement. Besides, this wasn’t about me, it’s about my daughter.
We toyed with the idea of writing about her lifelong avoidance of incurring a speech impediment brought on by having to live with displaced parents from New Jersey who, despite living in the Midwest for 20 years, still exhibited a thick Jersey accent and pronounce their words like dawg, waulk and tawk. If she went to school talking like that, there’d be no telling the humiliation level she would have endured. It’s bad enough that she’s the only kid who buys a “soda” instead of a “pop”. She’s also had to endure the mispronunciation of her last name all her life. This really isn’t that bad since many surnames are mispronounced, however many of those names are unique and difficult, whereas her name is pronounced exactly the way it’s spelled. ALMEIDA (AL-MADE-Uh). The letters “EI” make the long A sound like in freight, weight and eight. For some reason, folks just simply mispronounce the name, mostly with the long E (ee) sound (AL-MEED-Uh) or sometimes with the long I (eye) sound (AL-MY-Duh). Sometimes they throw in a few extra vowels, for good measure. I have, long ago, gotten used to the various mispronunciations and it doesn’t bother me but my kids seem a little perturbed by the whole thing. They’ll learn to live with it.
If the most traumatic thing we could find in our daughter’s first 17 years on this earth is that some English teacher thinks she’s Mexican instead of Portuguese, is it possible that we’ve we sheltered our kids too much? Perhaps we have. I don’t know. What I do know is that we wouldn’t change a thing. My oldest daughter is going to college next year and my youngest will follow two years after that. They are beautiful and talented girls who’ve never given us any reason to worry and for that, we are grateful. Their mother deserves the majority of credit for that. They are both pursuing their dream of working in the fine arts world either as an artist, story boarder, illustrator, animator, writer, author or all of the above. My wife and I applaud and encourage them.
All we can do as parents, at this stage of the game, is motivate and push them to do their best and hope they remember all the things we’ve taught them over the years. There is plenty of time for them to fail as adults and when they do, hopefully they’ll learn from their mistakes and grow personally and professionally. The question still remains, should we have let our kids fail?
Not on our watch.
