Giving Up or Trying Again?

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Childhood is a wonderful time to experience success. However, for many children, their school experiences give them the chance to fail over and over again until they come to view themselves as failures.

One blessing of homeschooling is that parents can watch closely and carefully for opportunities for their children to experience success.

During a recent visit, one of our grandchildren wanted to create a domino run. Invariably, the table got bumped or a finger got in the way. In no time, the joyful start turned into tears and feelings of inadequacy and failure.

I felt that this child needed this success. We found a time when no little ones would be around. We found a more stable table. We made the domino run a team effort. The discouraged child, a patient sibling, and I worked on a domino run together.

One strategy was to set up 10-12  dominoes and then put in a toy block, set up 10-12  dominoes and then put in a toy block. We repeated this pattern until our design was complete. That way a slip up resulted in only 10-12 dominoes falling and not the whole run. When we finished our design, we carefully pulled out the toy blocks and replaced them with dominoes. Here is the run with the toy block stops removed.

The result was thrilling. Every domino fell exactly when we wanted it to. Huge smiles and high fives replaced the tears and discouragement of a few hours earlier.

Those toy blocks became a safety net. Dominoes could still fall before we wanted them to, but the result didn’t become a catastrophe. Helping a child with their emotions at times like these can feel overwhelming, but the feelings are real. Little events like these can encourage a child to keep trying the next time. Every success makes it a little bit easier to try again.

In adulthood, persistence and patience can make a profound difference in the quality of a person’s life and in the lives of those closest to them. Thank you for training your children in the little things so they know what it feels like to try again and to succeed. Someday the stakes will be very high.

For a righteous person falls seven times and rises again,
But the wicked stumble in time of disaster.
Proverbs 24:16

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