In life, failures spare no one, let alone children in school. On average, a student undergoes tons of competitiveness throughout those glorious 14 years of education. As obvious as it can be, academic failures are binary in nature. While a few will match or exceed the expectations and the others will falter. However, children in their tender age and with limited experiences of life can fall prey to these emotional rollercoasters due to failures. In such situations, the role of parents can do a lot about enriching their kid’s personalities. 

So, how do you ensure that your kid deals with academic failures in the best possible ways?

Failures can be a great teachable moment for anyone. Try to calm your unruly or passive-aggressive kid to accept one’s failures and move on. Here are 5 ways to teach your children to handle failure, specifically academic failures in life. 

• Empathise: The first step in pacifying your kid from any failure is to empathise with him/her. This will comfort your kid to make peace with the failure. Acknowledging and accepting that he/she has failed a test will enable the kid to analyse the mistakes and the severity of the efforts made. A solution can be worked out when the kid knows the problem. Be a role model and share your stories of failures and their aftermath.
• Provide them with solutions: Stress and worries often cloud our judgement. While children may not be able to accept or handle their failure, help them deal with it by seeking possible solutions. This will energise them to think widely, analyse and come up with a reasonable solution to act upon for the next test.
• Do not scold or try to be overprotective: Like every other parent, children’s failures can bog down even parents’ moods too. However, it is them who can help them bounce back from such disturbing and distracting situations. Yes, children can be very attached to their efforts and outcomes. Do not shield their failures or try to be overprotective. Also, do not scold the kid to make them feel bad about themselves.
• Focus on the big picture: Schooling and its experiences are a big part of one’s growth and personality. Make your kid realise that one failure cannot decide the overall outcome. One has to learn from there and move on. Luckily if the kid faces academic failure early in his/her life, he or she can bounce back quickly. In senior classes, children tend to be conscious about their image so dealing could be hard. Help them realise their mistakes and offer help and support to overcome the hurdles.
• Speak to the teacher and experts: Academic failures cannot be just due to lack of effort. Deep down there could be mental or physical issues as well. Speak to the teacher about your ward’s behaviour in class. Understand how your child responds and interacts in class. This should offer insights into the grey areas and non-academic areas to learn academic concepts as well.

Bouncing back from any situation becomes easy when one finds support and care. Children inadvertently seek refuge in their parents, especially mothers. In times of distress, rather than panicking or resorting to sharp behaviour. Hence it is in the best interests of the students that academicians and the parents both try out the aforementioned ways to handle their children’s failures. While academicians must strive to build resilience in kids, parents can train their children to perform better, analyse their mistakes and rework them the next time.