Member-only story
On Teaching My 7-year Old Son that Failure is Good
He’d just arrived from school, and my son was weeping inconsolably.
His cry was that of anguish, the type that follows great bereavement. In between, he would pause to catch his breath while trying to explain the source of his sorrow, but half-way through a fading sentence, he’d break down again.
After many unsuccessful attempts to calm him down, he was finally able to string enough words together to clue us in.
He’d failed his Grade-2 math classwork.
And that was it.
It will be impossible to fully dimension this boy’s reaction without some context.
First, his crying wasn’t prompted by my inquiry about his school work. My ice-breaker question after he returned from school had been, “How was school today?” And that was all it took to pull the trigger on these deep emotions.
Second, we aren’t the do-well-or-die-trying type of Nigerian parents. While we encourage our kids to strive for excellence, we won’t whip them to pole position. There is more to life than strained victories.
Third, and perhaps the most enlightening insight about what I thought was an extreme reaction to not doing well in a math test is that this straight As child of mine has always had a high personal ambition…
