Allowed to Fail

Today's Wall Street Journal (Dec. 26, 2011) carries yet another article on "Tiger Parenting" from Amy Chua, the celebrated and much criticized author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. The occasion of the article was her oldest daughter's departing for college and the many questions she's received about tiger parenting from afar. How does she drill and monitor her daughter from miles away?

Mom's short answer: She doesn't. The long answer is more interesting. She begins by drawing a comparison between tiger parenting and helicopter parenting. Tiger parenting, she says, assumes strength, not weakness, in children, an assumption "not that different from the traditional parenting of America's founders and pioneers." Helicopter parenting, by contrast, is characterized by parents "hovering over their kids and protecting them, carrying their sports bags for them and bailing them out." Helicoptering assumes weakness, not strength.

From our perspective as educational consultants to parents, this a crucial distinction. Because many of the students we work with have learning disabilities or emotional and psychological problems, we see many parents who have been struggling with school and home issues for years. Teachers, doctors, day care staff and others have helped parents identify in excruciating detail the weaknesses in their children. Faced with such diagnoses, the parental temptation is to protect and shield them from hurt and failure.

While some support and scaffolding may be necessary, of course, protection as a growth strategy is perilous. Often protection leads to bailing out to stave off failure: Difficult homework is done for the child, sick notes are written to avoid taking tests, curfews are overlooked. Unfortunately, failure is often our best teacher, so when we stand between children and consequences, we deprive our children of a chance to learn. I fear we also send a darker message that we don't think they are strong enough to learn. We tell them they are too fragile to fail.

A parent we worked with once told me when he knew it was time to send his struggling daughter to a therapeutic boarding school. They had tried everything to help her, but finally realized that she "didn't have any skin in the game." By that he meant she didn't really feel responsible for trying to solve her problems. She needed to be allowed to fail, so she could see her role in the solution.