All boys experience failure – lots of it. A boy will almost certainly fail when he first tries to walk; he won’t master buttons on his first attempt, ride a bike or tie his shoelaces straight away, yet he is prepared to have another go. Why is it that these early failures don’t make growing boys give up, despite sometimes intense frustration, while later ones can stop them in their tracks and throw them into the depths of misery?

The uncomfortable truth is that adults are often responsible for the change. They start telling children off for failing, teasing them, and making them feel ashamed.

If you are a parent:

* Respond constructively: failure is like a puzzle to be solved, not a disaster to be denied; consider whether the target was too ambitious
* Respond genuinely: be honest about the outcome, and ensure it remains his problem, not yours
* Respond sensitively: however much he may deny it, failure is upsetting and can undermine confidence; accept, understand and let him voice his feelings; don’t be too strict with him; seek success elsewhere to balance a failure
* Show that you love him for who he is, not what he can do

If you are a teacher:

* Describe in detail what went wrong and how to do better
* Let him know you believe he can improve and demonstrate this with a sample piece of work
* Encourage him to self-evaluate as much and as accurately as possible
* Be available if he needs help
* Look for modest, not unreal, success stories: individual boys can explain how, and perhaps why, they turned themselves around
* Find out what might lie behind any unexpected fall-off in performance
* Don’t punish him for failing -he may start to lie or cheat

But failure is not something to be shunned. It provides factual and neutral information on what went wrong and what needs to go right. Failure is an inevitable and essential part of learning, and shows that learning is happening at the frontier of current knowledge. If the lessons to be learnt from failure are taken on board, they will light the path to success. This will not happen if adults deny, ignore or punish failures; making a boy feel he should hide and ignore the truth.

Related posts:

1. The Basics of How to Parent Your Boys: Let Him be Responsible for His Success and Failure

2. The Basics of How to Parent Your Boys: Don’t Invest Your Self-Worth in His Success

3. The Basics of How to Parent Your Boys: Nurture His Self-Respect

4. The Basics of How to Parent Your Boys: Let Him Say No

5. The Basics of How to Parent Your Boys: Work to and From His Strengths

6. The Basics of How to Parent Your Boys: Respect His Feelings

7. The Basics of How to Parent Your Boys: Support the School

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9. The Basics of How to Parent Your Boys: Deal Positively With Peer Pressure

10. The Basics of How to Parent Your Boys: Don’t Make Approval Conditional on Good Behavior