The Gift of Failure summary

The fight for survival that children experienced hundreds of years ago has given way to a fight for perfect grades in school. Although grades were invented to measure progress and future success, they have a considerable downside: they fail to instill intrinsic motivation in children.

From the very first day of school, children are pushed to deliver good grades. They are taught that without them they won’t live the life that they want or become a respected member of society. This forces all pupils to go the same route and strive for consistent A’s. Failure has been removed as an option.

Parental involvement is crucial in a child’s education, but there is a difference between being involved and trying to rule your child’s school life.

You should therefore opt for autonomy-supportive parenting, rather than controlling parenting.

A lot of parents praise their children every possible way they can, but praise can actually demotivate your child. It’s all about how you praise them. So how should you give praise?

First and foremost, you should praise a child’s behavior, not the child. Praise has different functions:

Household duties are a classic breeding ground for parent-child conflict. But they’re also the first opportunity for children to learn competence and responsibility.

Children who take part in housework feel responsible and purposeful, and this kind of participation is a crucial step toward an autonomous, self-driven life. To understand just how important a sense of purpose is, we need only to look to research on suicide: lack of purpose is one of the most reported problems of suicidal people.

Our social life begins in infancy when looking at adult faces and mimicking their expressions. And learning how to interact with others will continue throughout our lives. Therefore, the sooner children recognize that social skills aren’t fixed, the better.

Though caregivers play a critical role in communication, children develop largely through communication with other children. They learn a great deal from free play, and parents should try to be as hands-off as possible during these times.

When poor grades start coming in, even the most supportive parents can get nervous and try to use controlling techniques to get their children back on track. These moments, however, are ideal opportunities for children to decide what’s important to them.

Grades aren’t the be-all and end-all: they have their limitations. One study in Japan researched the performance of students in math quizzes with two groups of students. One group was told that their results would impact their final grade and the other group was told the purpose of the quiz was to monitor their progress. The result? The second group performed far better and learned more from the quizzes compared to the first.