Have you addressed your Mistake Wound?
Learning to see children's mistakes as opportunities, not burdens
Mistakes, whether made by accident or perceived carelessness, can provide as much of a learning opportunity for your child than the most beautifully orchestrated lesson plan. The trick is to see the opportunity the mistake opened, not to only zero in on the mistake itself.
My oldest child was around three years old when he carefully carried a small cup of milk into our living room and reached over the edge of the couch to set it onto the glass top end table.
It was not out of the ordinary for him to carry a drink into our living room, but it was out of the ordinary for him to have one without a lid. I do not recall the specifics around why he had this cup—maybe his usual one was dirt; maybe he decided it was time to emulate the adults in the house; or maybe he was feeling extra confident in his liquid carrying abilities. Regardless of the why, I made a conscious decision at that moment not to intervene, even though every part of me wanted to.
It would have been so easy for me to jump in and offer my assistance. I could have gently taken the cup from him and/or guided his hand to ensure a graceful placement. But, for many reasons that were years in the making, I decided not to.
Not only did he look adorable and seemed so self-assured, I knew this was a good time for me to practice something I really needed to work on—letting him do things without me intervening even when an accident was imminent.
As he reached to put his cup down, he hit the edge of the table and milk splashed out all over it. He looked at me with the sincerest expression and apologized. I comforted him and told him it was no big deal. And I meant it.
Instead of over focusing on the mess, I turned our attention to what was happening to the milk.
The edge of the glass top table was keeping most of the milk from tumbling immediately to the floor and a small dome was forming. I pointed it out. He noticed how some of the milk was slowly starting to drip onto the hardwood floor below but not all of the milk. His Dad, a physics major, interjected with some jargon about surface tension and molecules, to which my son seemed intrigued. Would he remember those terms long-term? Probably not. Did they make sense to him at that moment? Maybe. But instead of quickly wiping away the milk, and with it a chance to connect, we focused on curiosity and intrigue and “played” with our food.
Happy Accidents
I recount this story for a few reasons. It’s an example of what is possible when we embrace the messy. If we can reframe mistakes and missteps as opportunities for learning and expansion, think “happy accidents” as Bob Ross used to say, we can bear witness to our children’s mistakes time and time again because they will make them time and time again.
Sometimes they happen simply because of the clumsiness that comes with development. Other times they happen because they are not cognitively mature enough to think two steps ahead. And sometimes the stars align perfectly for a perfectly good mess. This is one thing I can say as a parent with 100% certainty.
The unanswered question is, “How will you respond?”
Children do not know to be afraid of mistakes until they are conditioned to be.
We know this because we can watch how babies and toddlers interact with and explore the world. Notice how they attempt something, fail, and try again. They take risks. No one needs to tell them to do this. There are no classes to teach this skill.
What is even more amazing is how much effort and energy babies and children will put towards mastering a task. From reaching for a toy to walking and talking, the innate desire to improve through trial and error is clear. They do not require grades, praise, or rewards for their efforts because accomplishing the task they set out to accomplish is the reward.
What is Our Role?
We play a critical role in helping our children befriend mistakes as an aspect of deep, meaningful learning. To do this, we need to confront our own attitudes towards mistakes. For instance, I learned at a young age that doing things “right” came with rewards and attention. When I did well in school, I won the favor of teachers, my parents, and even other students. When I made mistakes, which inevitably happened, I would get frustrated with myself. I also noticed how the external validation stopped. I grew to harbor anxiousness around mistakes, and there were times I would bend myself into a pretzel to avoid making one. It was emotionally draining, unsustainable, and created a nasty side effect called perfectionism that took me years to unravel.
The Mistake Wound
The “mistake wound” arises when we feel shame, humiliation, or embarrassment about the mistakes we made as children. Typically, someone we depended on, trusted, or respected responded to our gaffs, miscalculations, or missteps in such a manner that conjured up these feelings inside of us. The degree to which a wound festers is based on a variety of circumstances (emotional support, temperament, family culture, etc.), but the internalized message is the same: mistakes cause pain, and I want to avoid them.
The influence such an internalized message can have on one’s life ranges from avoiding a variety of intellectual challenges for fear of being wrong (playing small) to seeking (unattainable) perfection to being extra hard on oneself (self-deprecation).
The mistake wound shapes our attitudes and actions whether we realize it or not.
In my own life, the fear of messing up or being wrong made me play small and play it safe. I wouldn’t branch out of my intellectual comfort zone unless I knew I could ace the activity or avoid any sort of (perceived) public humiliation. When I did make mistakes on the job or in my relationships, I would relive them over and over in my mind. I became angry and frustrated that I didn’t “do it right”. I would think “I should have known better” or I would attack my own intelligence and believe that my co-workers or friends had lost faith in my abilities. The bar I set for myself was ridiculously high. Not surprisingly, I set the bar high for others, too. There was a tiny, limited space for screw ups if I thought someone “should know better”.
It’s likely my attachment to proving myself intellectually was born out of years of external assessments. This took shape while being immersed in school culture that elevated grades and test scores over the unique talents and strengths of the individual. And it was something I was forced to look at and understand when I became a mom.
While I cannot control how my children will feel in the world, I at least wanted them to experience mistakes as simply part of being human and not a character flaw.
It’s a worthwhile practice as a parent to think about the stories we have created around mistakes because it will impact how we relate to and parent our children. Here are some questions I have considered over the years that might be helpful:
Did you have support from caring adults when you made mistakes?
Did you spend time around people who said missteps were part of a normal life?
How do mistakes affect you now?
Do you get easily frustrated or irritated when your kids have accidents?
Do you notice their mistakes more than you notice their efforts?
Do you go out of your way to arrange the environment to avoid mishaps?
Do you say no to activities your children want to do because you are forecasting all the multiple ways things could go south?
Do you talk bad about yourself in front of your children when you make a mistake?
Is it common for you to point out or highlight the mistakes of others?
Are you able to make light of mistakes?
Spending time with questions like these allowed me to see how I took home the message that mistakes are not a welcomed part of healthy discovery. While no one explicity said to me, “Don’t ever make mistakes.” no one said “Mistakes are what helps us grow.” either.
Learning requires children to be in environments where they can take calculated risks, make messes, and experiment. Sterile environments are for hospitals, not homes.
To organize an understanding of the world, children need to actively move their bodies, to interact with objects and people, to explore the settings they live and play in, and to use all their senses. Part of our role, as parents, is to get out of our kids’ way as much as we can comforably bear so they can build the necessary skills for living with self-assurance.
While it can be tempting to interfere with our children’s exploration in the name of safety or to overly assist them because we want to prevent frustration and challenges, we are not doing them any favors by trying to hammer out all the bumps on their road of discovery.
Life is not a curling board, and your role is not to sweep or melt away all obstacles. Sometimes we do more than is necessary because we love our kids, and we genuinely enjoy doing things for them. But if we overdo it, we can remove their agency and inadvertently send the message that we do not believe they are capable. Eventually, they will believe this, too. And I know that is not your goal.
As Wendy Mogul, author of “The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children” says:
“Real protection means teaching children to manage risks on their own, not shielding them from every hazard.”
Remember, you had years upon years of opportunities to try, fail, and figure things out. Your kids have not. I am not suggesting that you give them carte blanche access to a blow torch and your knife collection. I’m not suggesting that you ignore where they are developmentally and bow down to their every whim or idea. I’m also not suggesting that you turn them loose onto the Internet and avoid guiding them through unfamiliar territory or situations. However, it wouldn’t hurt to give them a wider space to safely experiment and fail without fear of punishment, shame, or isolation. As Jane Healy writes In Your Child’s Growing Mind (2001):
“Since your child’s frameworks are small and immature, her learning in any situation is qualitatively different from yours. You can try to lend her your schemas by explaining them, but if she lacks the personal experience, your words will fall right off her incomplete hooks. This theory may explain why each generation seems to have to make its own mistakes instead of taking the good advice of its elders!”
If we could just pour our experiences and wisdom into our children, we would not need to have this conversation, but alas, it’s not the natural order of things. So, let’s embrace the reality that life is about trial and error, mistakes, and messes. It’s not always easy, either. We don’t like to see our children fail and we want to protect them from unnecessary pain. You know your kids and your own risk tolerance best so don’t ignore your own inner guidance.
However, there is serious freedom when you reframe mistakes as “something to be avoided at all costs” to “mistakes are gonna happen and there’s usually growth involved”. If we can mindfully lean into this and see our children’s mistakes as an opportunity to expand their understanding of their own abilities and the world around them, everyone will be better for it. It has definitely been true for us.
~Missy
Thank you for reading. If this is your first time here, Welcome to Substack! Here is where I write longer form essays, share books I love, and dive into parenting, education, and human behavior with the goals of deeper understanding and connection with one another.
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