What Am I Willing to Let Them Fail At? (Or, Questions That Make Me Squirm)

The other day, I was listening to someone talk about reframing failure, and I was totally nodding along. Yes, growth mindset. Yes, the power of "yet."

Yes, checking in after a tough test and asking, "Do you know what went wrong? Would you do it differently next time?"

All good stuff. Stuff I’ve been doing for years. Stuff that works.

And then, this question floated into my brain: What are you ready to let your kid fail at?

Um. What the heck, brain?

Because, look—I believe in learning from mistakes. I talk about it all the time! But the idea of letting my kid fail at something? Just standing there, watching it happen, and not swooping in to fix it? That hits different.

But…Why Would I Let My Kid Fail?

It feels unnatural, doesn’t it? Like we’re supposed to protect our kids from failure, not sit back and let it happen.

But here’s the thing—how we answer this question depends entirely on how we view failure in the first place. And most of us? We were trained to see it as bad.

School taught us that failure = disaster. Get an "F" and your world implodes. Make a mistake, and you’re wrong. Trip up, and everyone sees, and it’s humiliating.

But if we actually believe in all that growth mindset stuff—if we believe that learning is a process, that struggle builds resilience, that mistakes are stepping stones—then failure isn’t bad at all.

Actually, it’s necessary.

The Radical Idea That Might Make You Gasp

Here it is:

Failure is good.

Yep. I said it. Failure. Is. Good.

Deep breaths, I know. But stay with me.

Failure is how we learn. It’s how we see the gaps in what we know, how we figure out what didn’t work (yet) and what we need to tweak. If we never failed, we’d never grow.

Think about babies learning to walk. They don’t just wake up one day and start casually strolling around the house. They fall—over and over and over. But we don’t panic. We don’t gasp and say, “Well, that’s it. You’re just not cut out for walking, I guess.”

No, we expect them to fall. We know it’s part of the process. And because of that, we celebrate their wobbly little steps, knowing they’ll get stronger over time.

Somewhere along the way, though, we stop seeing failure as part of the process. We start thinking that if our kids struggle, if they mess up, if they don’t get it right the first (or fifth) time—it’s a problem.

But What If Failure Is Actually a Gift?

Because here’s the other thing failure teaches:

How to get back up.

When kids struggle with that impossible math problem, rewrite that essay again, or don’t make the soccer team the first time they try out, they’re building something even more important than skills.

They’re building resilience.

They’re learning that they can get through hard things. That effort matters. That they are capable of figuring things out.

And honestly? That lesson? The one that says, “You are strong enough to try again?"

That’s the one that will carry them through life.

So…What Kind of Parent Lets Their Kid Fail?

A thoughtful one.

A parent who wants their kid to learn more than they want them to look successful.

A parent who understands that struggle isn’t the enemy—quitting is.

And no, this doesn’t mean we just let them flounder or throw them into situations they’re not ready for. It means we step back when it’s safe to do so and let them wrestle with something hard. We don’t rush in to fix, to rescue, to make everything smooth.

Instead, we walk alongside them. We encourage them. We remind them that messing up is part of learning, and that they are more than any single mistake.

So, What Are You Ready to Let Your Kid Fail At?

I know. It’s a tough one.

But I’d love to hear your thoughts. What’s one area where you’re willing to step back—just a little—and let your child navigate their own learning curve?

Drop a comment or send me a message. Let’s talk about it.