The Fine Art of Failure

“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles overcome while trying to succeed.”      - Booker T. Washington

I was doing some research on a completely unrelated topic when I stumbled across a Psychology Today article called “Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges” by Dr. Peter Gray.   It spoke to the fact many students are starting college without basic life skills to help them handle adversity or even (gasp!) failure.  It’s a result of controlling parents who either push their kids too hard to be successful or refuse to see their own child’s foibles and blame everyone in sight for their own parenting misdeeds.  

These well meaning parents have been orbiting their children for years to prevent any adversity including dealing with disappointments or even simple life challenges to darken their child’s door. One university reported that emergency calls for counseling had doubled over even the simplest disagreements such as a student being called at bitch by her roommate or dealing with finances for the first time.  Two other students needed counseling after they called the police when they spotted a mouse in their off-campus apartment.  The officer was kind enough to set a mouse trap for the errant rodent.  

My question is not so much what has happened to kids these days but what the

hell happened to us as parents that made us  think that by wrapping our children in emotional bubble wrap we could keep anything bad from happening to them?  I’m not talking about abduction or sexual assault.  No, I’m talking about dealing with the consequences of being a total dumb ass - forgetting to do your homework, not studying for tests, forgetting to do things that they promised to do and just not knowing how to be a good friend because being self-centered takes precedence.  Where has the disconnect come between the Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomers, Generation X and the Millennials?  Why can’t we let our children fail or stand to lose when clearly they were bettered by an opponent with a higher skill level?  Why does everyone have to be a winner and get participant ribbons?  The very notion is pulling down the whole idea of success.   If our children don’t have obstacles - how will they grow?

Take learning to walk.  Now, your parents could have coaxed you, could have held your hands while you took those first tentative steps but through trail and error - you finally figured it out.  They didn’t get on the ground and lift one leg up and down for hours and days on end until the synapses figured out how to accomplish this basic life skill.  Babies get up, they fall down, they get up again, they fall down.  Sometimes they think it’s funny - sometimes they get frustrated but eventually they figure it out in their own time.  It comes from failing hundreds if not thousands of times until the light comes on and then one foot goes in front of the other.  I don’t know if you’ve ever been around a baby or toddler at the moment that they finally figure it out but the look on their face is nothing short of pure joy - the moment they develop that first sense of autonomy.  It’s a bitter sweet moment for parents - it’s the first of many steps that they take away from us.  Maybe that reality is why some of us work like hell to make sure they are never too far.  

We're reaping the effects of making sure our children have every advantage and

over schedule them to the point the have little down time to examine who they are because each block of time is devoted to baseball, football, soccer, ballet, piano, etc.  They are expected to exceed and when they don’t - it’s not because they might lack the drive or talent but it’s because the coach, the teacher or the director is not giving them a fair shake.  Worse, some parents are doing their children’s homework to keep their grades up while they are rushing from one activity to another.  The reality is that is that facade will crack - the test grades will prove that the brilliant insights these kids have at home for some reason do not transfer to the classroom.   Further, because of those schedules, they are not expected to do housework, clean their rooms, learn how to do laundry or cook because it’s done for them.  

Then when it’s time to go off to college and Mom and Dad are not scheduling every hour - they are at a loss.  The parents struggle with that separation because while they’ve been running them everywhere - they have not developed outside interests so when that empty nest presents itself both parties are at a loss as to what to do.   They both mourn the loss of this phase of their life but rather than move onto the next phase they are stuck.  Parents are literally calling college professors about poor grades the same way they did in grade school and totally unaware of how frankly messed up this is.  The kids feel unworthy at the dawn of any adversity and the rate of depression among young adults is at an all time high.  A  2012 Healthline article written by Michael Kerr found that:

• 1 out of every 4 college students suffers from some form of mental illness, including depression
• 44 percent of American college students report having symptoms of depression
• 75 percent of college students do not seek help for mental health problems

These statistics keep some college professors from giving bad grades for fear of causing emotional distress that can lead to serious psychosis.  As a result, colleges lower their standards because they are afraid of lawsuits resulting from nervous breakdowns or suicides.  Of course, this is not news to teachers who have been seeing this trend for years and now those overly protected children are off to college no more able to handle things then when they were in the sixth grade.   

Which is why we need to sit our kids down and tell them it’s okay to fail.  It’s okay to try something new and not hit it out of the park the first time at bat - hell it might take many times at bat to even make contact with the ball.  That’s okay - it’s life and not everything you try to do is going to go perfectly the first time or the sixth time or the 100th time.   It might even be good to abandon the whole concept of perfect - it just doesn’t exist.   Sorry you A-type personalities, you can try for excellence, you can try to go beyond the parameters of the project but it will never, ever be perfect - so let yourself and your kids off the hook.  Studies have shown that many successful CEOs and American Presidents were actually C students who could see the big picture rather fixating on small details that just slowed them down.   Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates were C students as were John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and George Bush both Jr. and Sr.  

One of my colleagues told me recently that her son was asked to do a paper on a historical figure and one of the paragraphs had to be a time that person faced adversity or failure.   That is an important lesson for kids to absorb - that greatness is not achieved overnight and it can be a lifelong process.  Here’s a short list of great people who failed many times before they finally got it right:

• Thomas Edison tried 1,000 lights prototypes before he finally was successful creating the light bulb. 
• Albert Einstein was expelled from school and refused admittance to Zurich Polytechnic School. 
• Oprah Winfrey was fired from her job as a TV reported because she was “unfit for TV.”
• Dr. Seuss’ first book To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was rejected 27 different times. 
• Steven Spielberg was rejected by the University of Southern California film school three times.  
• Elvis Presley was fired after one show at the Grand Old Opry and told to go back to driving a truck. 
• Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team but it didn’t stop him
  
  from pursuing what he loved doing. "I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

Success takes risk and risk comes with failure.  I’ve bombed on stage more times then I’ve felt like I’ve done a good sketch and I’ve been doing comedy improv for almost 30 years.  But I learn so much more from the stuff that tanks than I do from the scenes that are a hit.  Failure helps me figure out what audiences want and by eliminating the parts of scenes that have failed in the past - it helps me figure out what will work in the future.  

“Success requires passion, perseverance, emotional intelligence and the ability to understand the value of failure.” - John Haltiwanger, Elite Daily

If we don’t allow anything to happen to our children then nothing will ever happen for them.  The reality is that failing is part of life - it should not be feared - it should be embraced as part of our learning process.  As parents we must give our kids room to fail and give them a soft place to fall.  Just don’t rob them of the opportunity to take that leap of faith because falling before you reach the other side is half the journey. 

Fight for the Right to Part "T"

Being a child of the 1970's, you got to see some really cool TV as a kid.    In addition to The Carol Burnett Show, one of my other favorite comedy shows was Laugh In because it had strong women who created characters that could hold their own with the men.   Dan Rowan and Dick Martin were more than happy to entertain the weird characters that Ruth Buzzy, Joanne Whirley and Lily Tomlin brought to life.   It affirmed for me once again as a nine year old girl who one day wanted to be a funny lady, that if you could dream it and write it, you could be it.   Back then, comedy albums were huge.  I remember listening to Bill Cosby's My Brother Russell with my brother's and sisters until the record literally wore out.    Women were making comedy albums too and one of my favorite Laugh In alumni albums came from Lily Tomlin who played Edith Ann.  Edith Ann was a childlike philosopher whose dry sense of humor really appealed to me.   I loved the way she could size up a situation with a child's perspective (hey, I was a child myself) and get away with all sorts of things with her trusty dog Buster.   Unlike a lot of comedians who would pretend to be kids and make them over the top obnoxious, you could tell that she respected children and the way they looked at the world.   And That's the Truth was another comedy album that also got worn out.  I heard it so many times that I could do most of the routines on the album.   I'd perform some of the bits in school which helped me get over being shy.  The other kids through it was funny.  Edith Ann was always a big hit during recess. 

I also loved the cover of the album one of the things that I thought was the most interesting to me about Lily Tomlin was the way she wrote her name.   I loved that the "T" in her signature, looked like a real T and not like the cursive capital Ts we had to make in grade school.  It was definitive and had no apologies.   It didn't try to be something that it wasn't - it was a simple understandable T dammit!   Everyone could see that.  So right then I decided to make my capital Ts that way when I wrote in cursive.    I would use that T in the words "The" at the beginning of a sentence, or "This" or "That", okay you get the idea.   I'd get marked down on my papers but I didn't care - I wanted to make my Ts like Lily Tomlin - she didn't conform so why did I?  Even though it was the 1970's and the Equal Rights Movement was steaming on ahead - it didn't seem to apply to being pro-writing choice when it came to cursive.  You needed to write the way everyone else did - and that forced conformity really pissed me off as a kid - even though on the outside I was this sweet, shy little girl who just wanted to make other people happy.   

More than that, the cursive chart just never made sense to me.   Looking at it now - few people really write like this and it's hard to understand how people were able to read cursive at all.   I mean really, a cursive Q looks like a backwards 2, the F looks like a T with a stick in it's middle and the J and Z just look like they are trying too hard.  No wonder my left  handed brain just couldn't grasp it - the print letters made more sense even if the Q looks like an O with penis envy.   Of course I had to rebel against this non-sensical way of writing - Lily Tomlin's Ts brought order to a really confusing cursive world.  Unfortunately, my teachers didn't see it that way.  

My parents would notice the marked down papers when I brought them home and would ask me why I didn't write the things the way everyone was supposed to.   I told them because I liked that way and it made it different.   My parents knew when to pick their battles and getting on my case about my handwriting was not worth the effort.   Remember, this was the 70's and the world was changing at a quick pace.   They had three teens in the house - two of which were extremely rebellious at the time, so if letting me have my Ts meant one less argument, then so be it.   I always loved that about my parents - they let their kids be who they were and didn't try to project their own hopes and ambitions on to us - they would just try to guide.   Of course being in the middle of a recession and just trying to keep your head above water also helped keep things in perspective.    Here we are 40 years later and the song remains the same.  

I appreciate that now as a parent whose own kids are rugged individuals.  I love the way they see the world and what they see as right and what they see as injustices.  My son knows what's happening in Syria which is surprising for an 11 year old.  Hell, it wasn't until I started doing international health projects in my 40's that I really had an idea of how countries outside of the US really work.   He has even created his own country Amosan which welcomes of gays, the form of government includes democracy and a constitutional monarchy, there is enough food for everyone and it's main exports are sugar cane, rice and iPhones.   It's a very liberal place which is located in the Indian Ocean and has beautiful beaches.   He's also written a book called Mystery Falls and wants to publish it on Amazon which is actually easy to do.  Amber has a blog on FanFiction.net and writes about cartoon combinations like the Kids Next Door, Total Drama Island, The Regular Show and Stoked and she is the favorite author of quite a few people.   She also loves to draw and would like to be a cartoonist one day.  Many parents would tell their kids not to waste time on things like this - but my feeling is let them be who they are - as long as they are keeping up their grades I'm not going to try to make them into something they aren't. 

I appreciate now particularly as I work with teens who are feeling the pressure to make good grades so that they can qualify for scholarships in college.  Every weekend is filled with extracurricular activities so that they can get into the college of their or their parent's choice.   There is zero down time and the stress is palatable.   I remember putting that same pressure on myself as a teen (actually my parents really didn't push that much).  I was working after school at Publix to save money for college and trying to maintain a 3.8 point grade average.   I was super stressed and would have crying jags once I got home.  I see that same sense of frustration on the faces of some of the kids that I teach Sunday school to - they are tired of school, they are tired of trying to maintain the facade of achievement, they are tired of their parents for not letting them do what they really want to do which is goof off and have fun with their friends for the entire weekend.  They're just tired and that will lead to some serious issues once they get away from Mom and Dad in college or cause some serious burn-out once they get there.   If the kid is pushing themselves hard on their own, I think we need to step in and allow them the chance to Part-T -to allow them to be themselves and not worry about a college application for once - they need the down time.

  

I remember talking to a group of women at work with a very opinionated consultant about how kids are doing on school.   This one woman talked about how they didn't have weekends because every minute was spent taking her sons from football to baseball and doing that even if they were sick because the coaches expected them to play not matter what.   Her kids were exhausted also trying to keep their grades up.   I mentioned that sometimes it's okay to let a child fail because they learn to pick themselves up and how resilient they really are.  This comment incurred gasps from the women in the group.   I also mentioned that Dave Thomas of Wendy's was a C student and that sometimes business leaders who weren't A+ students had an easier time managing people because they can think outside the box.   The consultant mentioned that those kids will not get into Harvard with a C average like she did.   I didn't want to point out to this well heeled young woman that even after getting a four year degree from an Ivy League school - she was in her 30's and still working for her mother.  My God that degree really took her far.   Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, failed at a business called Traf-O-Data and eventually founded Microsoft.    

We live in a society that is so afraid of failing that it can lead you to muddle in a sea of conformity and mediocrity because being creative and taking chances is risky. But the reality is that you learn when you fail - the failure can drive you to innovate what you've been doing and come up with something better. Colonial Sander's secret recipe was rejected a 1,000 times before he founded KFC.  Before Evan Williams founded Twitter, he had a podcast platform that he had to abandon when iTunes started running podcasts.   Fred Smith received a D for submitting the idea that would eventually become the company that he founded - FedEx.  Walt Disney was fired by an editor because, "he lacked imagination and had no original ideas."  

So as another school year starts, let's take it easy on our kids and allow them to be who they need to be.   My son has grown his hair down to the back of his neck and is wearing it in a pony tail.   Do I worry about him being teased?  Hell, yeah, but he has to figure out how to handle things on his own.  I will tell him that he has to maintain a certain grade point average and that he has to apply himself for sure, but he doesn't have to be a straight A student like I was because that's just not who he is.  I'd rather that he's happy than losing sleep over a middle school science project he got a C on that isn't going to matter in 30 years anyway.   We've got to give our children the right to be who they are - to Part-T because being an individual who is not afraid of failure is the best way to build tomorrow's leaders.  Mark Cuban, the billionaire who sold his company to Yahoo once said, "I've learned that it doesn’t matter how many times you failed. You only have to be right once. I tried to sell powdered milk. I was an idiot lots of times, and I learned from them all.”   So is letting your kids be comfortable in their own skin important?  You bet your sweet bippy it is - and that's the truth!