No matter how fair and reasonable your expectation, your child is going to make mistakes as he is learning. They are part of the process; they go with the territory. One of our roles as a parent is to talk with your child about mistakes and not reaching one’s goal, about something “wrong”. We all fail to get the right answers sometimes, to say the right thing, to win a ball game, or just to write a clear sentence.
Explain to your child that mistakes actually help us learn. We learn by reflecting on the feedback we receive on the feedback we receive. If that feedback we receive. If that feedback tells us that we have done something wrong, then it is up to us to do something about it, to correct such mistake. What matters most is you want your child to be willing to try again or try a different approach-one that might work better for him – in order to achieve the desired results. Flexibility is a very important learning tool.
Your child must be reminded often that mistakes are part of learning. If you make no mistakes, because something is too easy, then you are not dealing with anything new, and you are simply wasting your time. It is actually important for your child to make mistakes- not a lot, but yes, once in a while, so that he knows what it is like to miss the mark, and how to come back and try again. The possibility of making errors is something we must all deal with constantly, and it will be less painful if the situation is not completely new.
You want your child to be comfortable trying new things. Help him see that only by risking failure does he also stand a chance of succeeding, gaining, and learning something new. Encourage curiosity, experimentation, and risk-taking. They are valuable and worthwhile qualities to nurture.
Be sure your child knows that while you expect him always to do his best, you also realize he is not perfect. No one is. There is no reason to pretend that we as adults are perfect and infallible. Children learn a great deal from seeing us recognize our imperfections, admit our mistakes, and work on correcting them.
By: Elisa O. Violeta | Teacher III | Tomas Pinpin Memorial Elementary School | Abucay, Bataan
