Getting The Most From Mistakes

Parents want to keep our children safe, physically, and emotionally. We hope they will neither make the mistakes we made or the mistakes we didn’t make. How wonderful it would be if we could just “text” them a list of all the pitfalls to avoid and have them comply. As my own mother had said about my sister and me as we were entering adolescence, “I was so scared of what you might do or what might happen, I wanted to keep you in the house ‘til you were done.” Of course she didn’t, and we made some mistakes and like all youngsters we learned a lot about what not to do, and some things about what we ought to do as well.

Kids making mistakes is a must for growth. How parents handle these events can make a difference in how the experience is internalized. However, sometimes an experience is worth more than a zillion words.

Teens will try things whether the parents like it or not.
Whether they are intentional but naïve mistakes such as the time my young daughter, was fired from her first summer job at a fast food stand, for “treating” her friends to free fried food; or unintentional lapses in fortune, such as happened to my second daughter on a trip to South America, mistakes are essential ingredients in the growth process.
We may not always see the path the growth will take at the time, but there is a strong potential for mistakes to lead to increased character development, awareness, empathy, and resilience.

Sadly there are some mistakes that do not have positive outcomes. This is real life. However, many of the errors and lapses that occur in the lives of young people can have beneficial effects.

I remember the day my older daughter arrived home with bad news. She had parked to close to someone in a parking lot and the other car’s door had scratched her car. She was about seventeen at the time and had had her license not more than a month. That experience was followed about a year later by a fender bender in a car she was riding with young driver she was not supposed to be with. These two mistakes made lasting impressions on my daughter. Today in her thirties, driving her two little ones around town, my daughter is an extremely safe and aware driver.

Mother’s admonitions to a teenage girl for safety precautions might have evaporated into thin air without the experiences to prove the point.

The time my other daughter, just out of her teens, contracted a tropical disease was another story. She had moved to New York to launch her career and was too busy to find a doctor. She was not too busy, however, to look for a husband. A year after her move, she met and became engaged to a young man from Ecuador. Heady with love and life, and clearly experiencing the immortality illusions of youth, this daughter decided to take her Malaria meds and go to the rain forest as a side jaunt to meet her future family.

Now, as a mother, caution rolled off my tongue easily. “The rainforest, Honey? I don’t think that is a good idea.” “But Mom, I took all the meds!
Everyone else thinks it is okay to go……”

No chance for Mom there. She went.

In the rain forest she was once, twice, and many times bitten. Six months later she became very sick with no doctor to go to. Finally, she landed in a hospital where a savvy resident recognized what was wrong with her. My girl emerged from that hospitalization cured --and transformed into a woman with a sense of responsibility—and mortality—no parent could have instilled.

There are other more mundane mistakes our children make as youngsters and as teens that are also helpful in their growth. Little Jimmy falls off his bike taking too many chances. Little Sally loses her favorite toy because she did not put it away one more fatal time. Young Doug tries smoking and gets sick, realizing he hates the stuff. The mistakes that help a child, teen, or young adult to learn about life and how to live it are what I call “necessary errors, “ those lapses in judgment from naivete, the unknowing of youth, peer pressure or a combination of the above. Many of these mistakes do not have extreme consequences, but depending on how they are handled by the parents, these mistakes can help the young person to learn how to cope and how to manage in future similar situations.

Other mistakes that are well-intended, such as my daughter’s trip to the rainforest after taking proper precautions, are errors that are not always just lapses in judgment, but sometimes appear as “Lapses in Luck” because they often result from good intentions or expectations gone awry. Often it’s the “after-the-fact” debriefing that points up the “mistake.”

In this category might be a summer job that a teen takes, but hates. The experience could be deemed a mistake because the outcome is not favorable, but there can be much to learn from this type of situation about preferences and capacities.

Another example of how fortunate a lapse in luck might be was the rainforest caper. In my daughter’s case, the doctor whose practice she finally entered told her that the preventive meds she had taken had kept her from getting sick in the rainforest itself. Of course, even luckier, she developed character from this episode, and luckiest of all—she lived.

The third category of mistakes comprises the ones that really cause a mess.
An example of this is a woman I know who burned down her college dorm because she used a hair dryer with a faulty wire. No one was hurt, but the mistake was costly. It is harder to see the “silver lining” in this type of mistake. However, these mistakes can be filled with potential for growth as well. Here are some tips for getting the most from you mistakes.

One: No matter how much you want to, do not embarrass or shame your young “mistakee” by pointing out how stupid or thoughtless she was. The shame factor can be more costly to the developing sense of self than the mistake itself. Use comments like, “That is too bad. I am sure you are not happy about this.” Or, “Everyone makes mistakes, let’s talk about what you can learn from this one.”

Two: Find time to support your teen through whatever consequences or restitution he or she must make because of the error or lapse. Do your best to let your child take the responsibility he must take without doing for him what he must do for himself. There can be great learning potential in experiencing natural consequences.

Three: Do not use the mistake as social small talk. “Guess what Ricky did last week. You won’t believe what an idiot he is…” is not the type of comment that will help Ricky to do better. In fact, if he hears it, it might cause Ricky to act out his hurt and disappointment in himself, which may lead to more serious mistakes.

Four: Turn off the electricity to the Neon Glowing “I-Told-You-So!”
This will not help your teen to grow, but rather will lead to resentment, concealing, denying and possibly acting out.

Five: Find time—Make time—to talk about what happened. Let your teen express feelings about what he/she did. Refrain from name calling, pointing out that You knew better. Review options for handling consequences and the fall out from the situation.

There are some mistakes we are glad our kids make, some we will make the best of, and some we pray they never make. Whatever the problem, a no- blame, no-shame approach, while holding an expectation that the teen will take appropriate responsibility, bodes for the best outcome. Trust that these unpleasant experiences can be the piece of sand around which a lovely gem of an adult will form.