Why letting kids “fail a little” builds real confidence

If you watch most parents today, you’ll notice something. We don’t let children struggle anymore. It is not intentional, it occurs. We remind them of all the things, we pack their bags, we check on their homework, we talk to their teachers, we resolve their fights, we clarify their mistakes and we are in a position to correct their predicaments even before they even become aware of the predicament. Life becomes very smooth for them. Very managed.


And then one small thing goes wrong and the child doesn’t know what to do.

They forget a notebook and panic. They lose a competition and cry like the world ended. A friend stops talking and they don’t know how to fix it. A teacher scolds them and they feel humiliated for days. Not because these things are very big, but because they are not used to handling things on their own.




Confidence is never constructed when life is a rose. It is confidence that is built when life is a bit of a mess and you gradually come to realise that you can still cope with it.


When a child forgets their homework once is unlikely to forget ever again. A child who packed their own bag and forgot their bottle once will check their bag properly the next day. A child who had a fight with a friend and had to awkwardly go and talk and make up learns something about relationships. These are minor details, but these are what are known to accumulate confidence silently.


We believe that confidence is obtained when we constantly praise children, when we constantly encourage them, when we constantly remind them that they are smart and talented and special. That is nice, but that is not where real confidence comes from. Real confidence comes when a child thinks, “I didn’t know what to do, but I figured it out.” That feeling stays with them much longer than any praise.


Allowing children to fail on a few occasions is not an indication of not attending to them or showing no interest in them. It simply means not rushing to solve every minor issue at hand. It is allowing them to be a little ashamed, a little lost, a little out of place occasionally. Such sentiments are not harmful. Those feelings are teachers.


Because when children grow up, life is not going to remind them about everything, protect them from every mistake, or solve their problems for them. At some point, they will have to handle things on their own. And if they have never failed before, that will be very scary.


But if they have failed a little, forgotten a few things, lost a few times, fixed a few mistakes, and survived a few embarrassing moments, they grow up knowing something very important.


That they can handle life, even when things don’t go perfectly.