a good kind of failure

Last week I saw this, and it made me remember this, which got me thinking about, as a mom, how can I do this?!

How did I get there from images of photoshopped perfection and anorexic halloween costumes? Well, it's just the way my mind works, and honestly I think it's kind of always in the back of my mind - how do I get them out from underneath all of the world's bombardment of what they "should" be? I think the answer came to me this weekend, thanks to cheerleading. I can encourage and empower my kids by letting them fail.

Now before you start thinking I'm some sort of sadist parent, it's not that I want my kids to be failures. I just want them to fail... sometimes.

This weekend, Sis went through 2 days of tryouts for basketball cheerleading. She tried hard and she didn't make it. She was upset, but she handled it gracefully, thanking the coach for the opportunity and stating that she would try again next year. Part of me wanted her to make it, so that she could try something new, but I found myself happily content with the result. There seemed to be a bigger life lesson in NOT making the squad.

Kids today are constantly being praised for their successes and not their efforts. I don't want my kids to have their self worth tied to results. I don't want them to be scared to fail. I want them to know that if they aren't the best, if they aren't always successful, it doesn't mean there is something fundamentally wrong with them.

I have decided that my job is to get them out from under what society heaps on them by making them face their failures head on and helping them through it. As hard as it is for me as their mom, I will not let them always take the easy path. And in the end, I hope to help them to succeed at life by learning to fall gracefully along the way.