Normalising Failure

I don't know about you but sometimes things haven't gone as I'd imagined.

I've failed at some things. Job rejection letters, promotions, baking, some parenting decisions!

Some things in my life haven't worked out for some reason or another but I'm human. I dusted myself off and got back on the ladder of life.

Sometimes though, it takes guts to get back up again. Us girls (if you’ll indulge me and my 30 somethingness) can find it particularly difficult as discussed in ‘A Mighty Girl’ post about Catlin Kirby. The 28 year old made a skirt out of 17 rejection letters that she had received over the last 5 years in her quest for PhD programs, scholarships and academic journals within her field of environmental science and policy.

“research has found that girls are more likely than boys to suffer from perfectionism and struggle with a loss of confidence when they make even small mistakes. Cultivating resiliency in girls is essential to countering these tendencies; as Rachel Simmons, author of Enough As She Is, asserts: "What we want is for girls to have the capacity to move through a setback without beating themselves up."

Building confidence

During our hands on coding sessions we modelled failures to our little 2.5 year olds during our structured play activities. We'd ask them why something didn't work, they'd then work it out and correct us. We showed them appropriate responses to problems and how to ask for help. Then when it came to the children's turn to do the activity and they encountered a problem, they knew what to do. Invariable they'd rally round and help each other to succeed so the problem was fixed.

Debugging skills help with so much - breaking down problems to find the error, working out things logically to fix it, testing it again to see if it works, asking for help, giving help and showing resilience. The journey one goes through when we experience failure with regards to the activities with Unplugged Tots ends with confidence.

We always want to empower our children and provide them with a safe space to explore their emotions. Yes, they’re learning computational thinking and the foundations of computer coding skills but they’re also learning so much more. So much that will stay with them. Building confidence and a sense of achievement are great feelings when one has gone on the journey of failure.

Cheers to Catlin, a Mighty Girl indeed.

If you have children, particularly daughters, then I would strongly recommend having a look at A Mighty Girl for inspirational on books, toys and movies for smart, confident, and courageous girls.