Let Them Fail

One of the things that we do as parents is let our children fail at things. 

It's hard not to step in and immediately show them the right way, but we let them fail so that they will learn.  When learning to crawl and then walk, we show them what needs to be done, we act like babies ourselves and crawl around on the floor, but we let them figure out for themselves how to move their arms and legs.  When they are older we watch as they try to put a square peg in a round hole.  If we tell them it can't be done, that doesn't sink in as much as having them fail, repeatedly, and for days sometimes, to get that square peg through that hole.

As they get older, they get "smarter" in that they recognize much quicker when something is wrong and they change their actions.  No longer do they spend 10 minutes trying to get two legs in the same pant leg, as they recognize within moments that things are quite right.  After a while, however, their hormones kick in and they become as stubborn as babies with that square peg, because they are "smarter than you" and they "know more" than you did at that age.  Once again, we let them fail, knowing that the phase will pass and that they will learn.  Sometimes painfully, but they will learn what works and what doesn't and the fact that the tattooed, lip-pierced biker down the street might not have the same interests as them.

Finally they become adults, get an education (sometimes) and get a job (hopefully).  And what happens then?  Many organizations punish people who make mistakes or make it so intolerable to function that the person quits.  For the most formative years of our lives we are left to our own devices.  We are allowed to fail, knowing that someone is going to help us out by not necessarily helping us solve the problem for us, but by letting us know that it is safe to fail.  Why does this change when we get a job.

I've made so many mistakes and failed at so many things I can't count.  I recognize some of my biggest failures and I know that I have learned from them.  I recognize some of the repeated failures where I have hit my head against the wall over and over again, only to have something finally sink in.  But the one thing that I also notice is that I have been allowed to fail.  Yes, I have had my knuckles rapped for failing, but it was only when I failed to learn was the subject every really brought up.  I consider myself quite fortunate to have had supervisors who were willing to let me fail at something, so that I would learn, rather than coddling me and telling me exactly what to do. I essentially got on-the-job education from my mistakes.

Looking back on it I realize that the best thing we can do for people is let them fail and then support them as they try again.