This post is sponsored by GoldieBlox and TheMotherhood.com. All opinions are my own!
Recently we’ve had some issues with Sophie where she’s balked about doing activities she’s required to do in school – specifically writing a story and drawing pictures. She loves to read and is pretty much a voracious reader, but she doesn’t like to write stories or draw pictures because she thinks it’s “too hard”. Translation: what she comes up with is not good enough for her standards. She wants it to be perfect, and she sees her efforts as failure. So, she’d rather just not try.
UGH. If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know that Sophie has conquered some pretty difficult obstacles already in her young life. Therefore, her mother thinks she can do ANYTHING! The truth is, the girl who I was told would need 3-4 years of speech therapy stood up in front of a room full of strangers at her district speech meet a couple of weeks ago and got a Superior rating – the best you can get! So she’s definitely an overcomer. And she’s motivated to do something she wants to do.
I’m afraid now I’m going to have to teach her how to overcome her mindset. Now I am going to have to teach her the value of working hard and being willing to fail, to learn from failure and that it can make you so much better.
I recently shared two things with Sophie to help her understand how failing is only bad if we let it keep us from trying again. One was this awesome trailer about girls and failure from GoldieBlox. I love the message – and to be honest, Sophie is more prone to believe something from her favorite toy maker at this point. If Goldie says it…it must be true. Check it out – it’s awesome and inspiring, and a great conversation starter for you and your girlies!
The other thing I shared with Sophie was my own personal story of failure. I am sure this is *shocking* to you, but I have a few. Ahem. One that I thought might resonate the most with Sophie is the story of the first test I ever failed. First and ONLY, I might add. Because I definitely learned from it!
So I told Sophie of how when I was a freshman in high school, I signed up for Honors Algebra II. I had taken Algebra I in 8th grade, and had gotten an A with no problem so when the guidance counselor suggested I sign up for Honors Algebra II, I did with no qualms.
Well. Up until that time I had never had to study for math. It came easily to me. But I found out real quick, on our 2nd test that I was going to have to study REAL hard for Honors Algebra II. I got a 64% on that test. I was COMPLETELY shocked when the teacher returned it to me, and very ashamed. I cried the rest of the day at school. I was shocked because I don’t think I knew I was capable of failing. It hit me really hard – both the failure and the fact that it was possible. I know that may sound crazy, but I was 14 and school had always come easily to me.
As upset as I was by that failure, I was determined to learn from it and get past it. What I learned was that if I wanted to do well in this class, I was going to have to work really hard to keep up. I was going to have to get my dad (a math teacher, thank goodness!) to help me after school with homework and I was going to have to study really, really hard for test.
That test did set me back the first quarter, and I think I got a B, but I pulled it up the second quarter and my semester grade was an A. Whoop! I really, really worked for that grade. It was the first grade I worked super hard for and I was so proud. I found out that what I lacked in natural ability in that instance I could make up for with practice and hard work.
Math in high school got harder, and I had to work harder. I took Trigonometry and Probability & Statistics the next couple years and I had to study and work really hard in those classes. But I knew I could do it if I wanted to do well – and I did. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. And at the end of my high school career, I was one of our class Valedictorians, with a 4.0. I didn’t let math stop me from achieving that goal.
So, I told Sophie this. And I told her that maybe writing stories and drawing don’t come a naturally to her as memorizing a poem or learning her math facts do, but that if she wants to do well, then we can practice together and work hard so she can do as well as she wants to. My mom helped out by getting her a book that teaches how to draw animals, and we’ve already had fun approaching her drawing obstacle from that angle.
As Sophie and I built with GoldieBlox the other day, we encountered some failures, too. The instructions were simple and easy to follow but we had some other obstacles in our way. For instance, when it was time to put up Goldie’s zipline, we had trouble finding a good surface in our old house that the suction cups would stick to (we have plaster walls and woodwork galore!) It took us quite a few failures, but we finally figured it out!
First attempt looked great, but the suction cups wouldn’t stick to our woodwork for long!
So, we had to get creative!! After several failures we realized there just wasn’t a good place for two suction cups to go in our downstairs. The solution?? One suction cup stuck to our glass front porch door:
And one end of the rope tied – not stuck – to Jonah’s basketball hoop. We made it work – even though we had to think outside the instructions!
Goldie enjoyed her ride on this zipline! She got a little crazy, too!
We had a blast putting together GoldieBlox and the Builder’s Survival Kit, learning from our failures, and playing with the Goldie action figure, too – and Sophie and I want to pass the fun along to you!
First of all, we have a special 20% off discount code good through April 5 on your entire order from GoldieBlox.com!!! Order through this link and use discount code Spring2015-s2se3t6a and WHAM! You’ll get 20% off these great toys just in time for Easter!
Secondly, we also have a GIVEAWAY for ya! One lucky lucky winner is going to get the GoldieBlox action figure with zipline as well as GoldieBlox and the Builder’s Survival Kit, so you can build with your daughter and teach her about learning from failure, too!
To enter, simply comment on this post telling about one of your biggest failures and what you learned from it.
One winner will be chose at random at 6pm EST on Tuesday April 7, 2015. Good luck and GO Goldie!
The list is long and many…. Oh how do I choose? But, a recent parenting fail to report was when my five year old ties her shoes the other day. She is a third child and often holding on for dear life as we race through our daily schedule. I said “who taught you to tie your shoes?” Her response “I figured it out myself because you didn’t teach me.” Yikes! My hope is my failure to remember to slow down and give her the attention she rightly deserves will make her a strong self-sufficient woman… Or atleast it makes me feel better to think that!
I LOVE that! None of my children have shown any self-sufficiency…except Jonah, my third also. 🙂 The other two are helpless! I don’t think that’s a fail at all that she taught herself. Resourcefulness for the win!
Wow that can be hard to think about. What came to my mind first was high school geometry. My teacher tried hard to make us understand that if u don’t learn the very basics and memorize them u will never get thru to the end of the class. Well I didn’t take it for real since math had come pretty easy to me. Well I struggled the whole way through. I felt lost all the time because I was always stuck early into a problem not knowing the basics. To be honest I don’t know how I made it through, help if classmates I think. I learned to take what a teacher says to be real and to not over relax even in the beginning when it seems easy!
school was always easy for me, too-until Mr Carty’s AP bio junior year. I’d never had a bad grade or failure before that class!
I remember once in high school I turned in a summer reading assignment and my teacher told me if it were graded, it would have been an F. I WAS SHOCKED. WRITING!! Writing is my thing!! I learned very quickly there was no way I was going to BS it through that class.
I didn’t know your dad was a math teacher! I am glad my kids have a math teacher dad to help them, because I would not be any help there.
Failure: Did not get a part in high school play. Gave up acting to avoid future rejections. Learned: Rejection is part of life and you shouldn’t give up things you love just to avoid it. Every successful person encounters many rejections on the way to success!
Just ONE failure? Hmmm. One time I was selected to play at a special piano recital. It was in the city in a fancy piano store and I was one of just two students my teacher sent. My whole family came to watch. And as I sat at the nine-foot grand piano, I froze. I completely blanked. I couldn’t remember JACK. My teacher kept whispering to me, but I couldn’t figure out how to start, how to play ANYTHING! I finally did play my song, but it was mortifying. I actually feel embarrassed and sad just telling the story 25 years later!!!
Very awesome post. I think your examples will be encouraging to Sophie, as well as the talk you had with her the other day about the many things that she is good at and that no one is good at everything. I thought that you phrased it all very well.
Biggest failure? Oh, lord. Everyday I can find 1-2 failures to talk about. How ’bout the time we were selling our truck to a guy in another state and couldn’t find the title because our files are in disarray? And I had to search for 3 hours and STILL didn’t find it even tho’ I was looking at bills/files from 2005 and finally called the DMV to discover you can get a new title at their downtown office, so we had to do that before the new buyer got here. (That just happened like 5 minutes ago.) #filefail #organizationfailure
a
The first big failure that comes to mind for me was a test in French class in high school. I was SO GOOD at school! Never had to study, never had to think. It all just came to naturally. But my first foreign language class. I didn’t know how to make sense of it, and I didn’t know how to study for it. So…. I CHEATED and GOT CAUGHT! I wanted so bad to continue my easy streak, and continue to be the smart kid in front of all my peers. As a result, I failed the test, and everyone knew why. Needless to say I worked by butt of for that next test!!!!! And never tried to cheat again.
I have a lot. But one that always sticks with me is the 3rd grade spelling bee. I was by far the best speller in our class, and everyone knew it (including me). But I got out in a preliminary round by misspelling tepee. It will be a great lesson for my girls on “pride cometh before a fall” someday.
My biggest failures have been relational ones. And what I have learned can be summed up by Maya Angelou’s quote: “When people show you who you are, believe them”
I was engaged to someone and the relationship failed. I had always been taught to make rational, logical decisions. Feelings and emotions were girly and moody, not strong and reliable. Lots of people reinforce this idea to emotional girls.
Because on paper, there were no problems and my relationship made sense, I supressed my wavery feelings.That failure, which was very painful, taught me that I need to trust my emotions, which God gives us as strong guides for our hearts. I will never belittle or dismiss feelings. I’m not saying I always act on every feeling, but they are thermometers to my heart that I pay better attention to now. I do the same for my kids.
Failure happens all the time and I struggle with teaching my children that it is okay and a normal part of life. I failed to clean out the pockets of my son’s pants last week which led to a crayon/laundry disaster!
I fail daily to show some patience. Something me and both my girls need to work on!
One of my biggest failures happened when I did not stand up for myself…and therefore did not get what I wanted. I have since learned to be my own best advocate!
my hardest challenge right now is getting into a good spring/summer exercise and diet routine. I am overcoming challenging by making small changes and reasearching new options to incorporate into the work I am doing.
When I had my first child I had big beautiful ideas of how things were going to be with a baby in the house. My baby was never going to use a pacifier, and was going to nurse beautifully. Well, the second night home from the hospital with an unhappy crying newborn we were tearing into a package of pacifiers and giving up modesty to get some up close and personal help with breastfeeding. It taught me right away that parenting was going to be a lot of trial and error and thinking outside the box, and reaching out for help and advice from others. Also, if you’re motivation is worth it, you will do whatever it takes to succeed.