January 2, 2024

“Success is sweet”, every parent wants to see their child win. That is a naturally programmed desire in every parent. We want our children to be the best, get the best and do the best in every aspect of their lives. We prepare, we train them to win. We show them the stories of successful people. We point to people who are successful and tell them to be like those people. We just want what is best for our kids. Well, all these thoughts are good. We even provide the best of facilities so that the kids do not have scarcity of anything. We say yes to whatever they ask and in return, we ask them to get good marks and perform well as a parent we do everything to make the child’s life easy and comfortable. Now, the question is, will making the kid's life easier help him to deal with the world as he grows up?

We teach our children how to be successful, but do we ever teach our kids how to handle failure? Is there any course in school which teaches kids how to deal will rejection, failure and pain? As a counsellor, I have students who come to me feeling hurt and offended when someone says no to them. There are incidents where kids don’t even know how to channel their frustration and end up getting into things that harm them. I have noticed that the kids who get everything easily tend to break under pressure and when they are faced with rejections. They are partially never used to failure or rejection. The student who never failed in his or her exams till the PU level suddenly gets depressed when they fail or lesser marks in their degree exam. They are in a state of shock and are unable to accept the fact that even they can fail or that they are unable to get what they want. I understand that, as adults we try to protect our children. We trained our kids to win even during their toddler years when we used to let them win in games and wrestling matches. We have instilled in their mind that they can only win and they will never fail, that they are invincible. When we teach our kids only about the good things in life and try to hide the ugly truth, we may be able to protect them until they are teens but what about the time when they have to face the world, when they have to face the reality. I have seen parents hiding their struggles and pain from their kids thinking that they should not burden their kids with the family issues. You may think that you are protecting them by hiding the painful side of your life but in reality, if the kids are unaware of the pain and struggles of growing up and running the family, they will never be able to be independent and deal with their own problem that they will have to face when they grow up.

My opinion is that the kids must be made aware of the problem of the family at an early age and he or she should be involved in the struggles of raising a family. For example, I had a case of a student who was demanding a bike which cost above 4 lakhs and scolding his parents when they refused. He said that his father has money and that their family is rich whereas in reality, his father was going through a hard time financially. The reason his son behaved like that was because his son was never made to know about the struggles of the parents. Typically every parent would say “Nav chikkdiruvaga tumba kastha bandideve, hagagi nam maklu namtara kastha padod beda antha nav avarieg yella kodod.” (We have struggled a lot in our childhood, that why we don’t want our kids to struggle so we provide all the luxuries which we didn’t have) and believe it or not this is the biggest mistake most parents do. Giving everything that your kids ask will not teach them to value it. Only when you earn something with your efforts you will truly value something. Show them the reality, let them know what pain is, what failure feels like at an earlier, because tomorrow when they grow up, the world will not be gentle to them. Don’t push your kids to the jungle without teaching them survival skills. Your duty as parents is not just to provide comfort but also to prepare them for the future, prepare them for the realities of life, and prepare them to deal with all the demons they will have to face as to grow up. You need to teach your kids how to handle failure. You need to tell your kids and also make them realise with your actions that life doesn’t always work the way they want it. You need to understand that they will have to face rejections, humiliation, criticism, failures, heartbreaks and betrayals. Just sending them to big institutions, coaching classes, and preparing them to crack JEE, NEET or UPSC is not enough. You need to prepare them to face the toughest test of all – LIFE. Teach your kids that it's OK to be not OK sometimes. But it is not OK to stay that way for a long time. You should teach them to accept, and acknowledge failure and bounce back whenever they fail. Do not make them dependent on you. Help them only when they are unable to handle their problems on their own. If you always keep solving their problems and making it easy for them, then there may come a time in their adult life where they will always come running back to you whenever they have a smallest problem. I am sure that no parent would want their child to be dependent on them even after he or she is 30 years old. Would you? Don’t jump to help or solve your child’s problem immediately as it happens. Wait to see if he / she can solve it by their own. This way you will teach them to be independent problem solvers. The day your children doesn’t need you anymore to solve their problem is the day you will be able to retire peacefully or else you will never find peace in life. It is better to have a child who is wounded and healed than a child who is doesn’t know how to heal and you have to keep helping them. The true beauty of parenthood is to see our children be able to live their lives without having to rely on us for anything.

If you can prepare your child to face failure confidently even without seeking your help, then my friend, you have succeeded as a parent.