How to Help Kids Overcome A Fear of Failure

We hear from a lot of parents who contact us because their kids suddenly seem totally unable to get started on school assignments. The kids are perfectly capable, and once they get started they have no problem focusing, but there seems to be an obstacle in the way when it comes to simply sitting down at a desk, taking out their homework, and putting pen to paper.

Oftentimes we find that this stems from a fear of failure. Kids don’t want to start because they’re afraid of getting the answers incorrect or writing a sentence that doesn’t come out sounding like James Baldwin. They learn from an early age that the way to overcome failure is to generally avoid the tasks which may lead to failure (i.e. tasks that are more challenging for them).

We provide training to our tutors and teachers to support students with social-emotional learning for just this reason: often the academic issue has nothing to do with how capable they are and has everything to do with how willing they are to try their hardest and potentially fail.

Below, we’ve outlined some ideas around how to support kids in overcoming a fear of failure.

The Learning Winner

Usually kids have some of their first experiences with success and failure through playing games (board games, hide & go seek, etc.). It’s important to start early with helping them understand that losing doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve “lost” anything, because in truth they’ve actually gained more than the winner did: they’ve learned something, which makes them the “learning winner.” Helping kids change their perspective about how to turn a fail into a win and redefine the word as something of value rather than something to fear is a great first step toward helping them overcome a fear of failure.

Trying Is The Goal

Praise is a great way to reward kids for good behavior, but it’s important that we’re praising the effort instead of the outcome or the ability. It’s the practice and the perseverance that should be rewarded because ultimately that’s what leads to success.

Show Not Tell

Most importantly, we need to demonstrate to kids the appropriate ways to handle failure. Maybe for parents this means next time you burn the toast for breakfast (not that you would ever do that) instead of tossing the toast away you use the burnt toast as a teachable moment and talk to your kids about how just because you burnt the toast doesn’t mean you’ll never make toast again (they probably wouldn’t like that). You can tell them you’ve learned from the experience that, next time, you’ll set a timer on your phone so you don’t forget the toast. And in because you’ve learned something, you’ve just turned a fail into a win and instantly become the “learning winner.”

Talk It Out

Our last recommendation is not to shy away from talking with kids about feelings. If they’re trying something and it’s just not clicking, show empathy by saying, “I can see you’re trying really hard and I know it’s disappointing when you don’t feel like you’re making progress.” We want to show kids that it’s ok for them to feel frustrated and disappointed, and to sit in those feelings for a little bit and then learn to let them go.

Dot Day

One of my favorite children’s books is “The Dot” by Peter Reynolds because it’s all about helping kids overcome their fear of starting a new project. A blank canvas can be scary! In fact, it’s so universally scary that there is now an official “International Dot Day” for kids to learn all about the importance of starting somewhere, even if they wind up somewhere totally different in the end. Celebrating Dot Day is a great way to help kids start recognizing their own fears and be ok with them and realize they’re not alone.

In Conclusion

The more kids learn to embrace failure as an integral part of success, the less they’ll come to fear it. This is all a part of their learning to develop a growth mindset, which will take them far further in life than all academic skills combined.