By Mr. Kwan Hin Pan, Director of Financial Education Association Courses and Training

In many cases, the biggest impact on children is not the failure itself but their understanding of setbacks. For example, when a child is not chosen to represent the school in an inter-school competition, their immediate thought may be that they are not as capable as their classmates. However, there may be other reasons behind it, such as the teacher being concerned about their well-being and not wanting them to participate in more important competitions. This approach is not about letting children escape responsibility but sometimes it is necessary to help them understand that their own factors contributed to the failure.

Parents must remind their children that everyone faces difficulties when starting something new. It is important for parents to encourage their children to persevere and not place too much emphasis on perfection. They should resist the urge to provide immediate help and instead allow the child to try different methods to face the challenges. For example, if a child is having difficulty learning calligraphy, they can start by imitating.

As children, their attitudes towards people and things around them are often unstable and easily influenced by emotions and other factors. When faced with difficulties and failures, they tend to develop negative emotions and struggle to adopt the right attitude towards failure, which hampers their resilience. In such situations, parents should promptly tell their children that failure is not frightening and that they can do well if they are a little braver. They should encourage them to learn from their failures and think about how to do better next time. Parents should consciously use their children’s failures as opportunities for education, guiding them to regain their courage and confidence to try again. At the same time, they should teach their children to face difficulties and setbacks with bravery, and enhance their ability to overcome challenges and develop resilience.

In life, nobody can remain undefeated forever. Even “Hurdle King” Liu Xiang from China experienced a setback at the London Olympics. Only those who are brave enough to face failure have the chance to once again achieve a successful outcome and wear a smile of success.

Parents should understand the importance of teaching their children to bravely face failure because nobody achieves success throughout their entire life. From a young age, we understand the saying “Failure is the mother of success,” so we don’t fear failure. However, if we carefully examine our understanding of this phrase, the emphasis should be on “success” rather than “failure,” which means that our acceptance of failure still comes with conditions. When failure doesn’t guarantee future success, it can still be associated with shame and guilt. Therefore, parents must clearly understand whether they are teaching their children to face failure or to avoid it!