Failure, while not an option, is bound to happen. PREPARE!

My life has taken many turns and twists over my adult years.  Challenges here and challenges there.  My latest challenge is parenting.  Sure, I spent about 3 years as a nanny raising someone else's kids.  That was very different than having my own kids!  I often recall on experiences and past "lives" to face the present.

One such experience I am calling upon for the current kid situations, is my management days as a management trainer for FedEx.  While I believed in my job and my trainees, it was some pumping them up before setting them free to succeed.  One of the most impactful such pumping lessons was the showing of a Charlie Plumb video.  No idea who he is?  Google him!  He is a hero, although he claims he is not!  He is a motivational speaker that shares his life experiences as a POW and how he survived through faith (not just spiritual), commitment, pride, and resilience that allowed him to overcome anger, boredom, fear, and torture.

Some of his speech that has significance right now for me and the parenting of my kids include the following:

After losing the last basketball game of the season when he was young, Coach Smith told Charlie Plumb, "Whether you think this team is a bunch of losers or a bunch of winners, you are right."  The difference in success and failure is choice.  We all have that choice.


When you start blaming others for your misfortune, you suddenly give them control over your life.


If you teach your kids nothing but success, they will never know how to overcome the first downfall.  If you never teach a kid how to overcome downfalls, they will never know how to press on and bounce back.  They will pass the blame to others, giving up control and choose to be the loser.

So how is this relevant to what I am trying to teach my kids and what we face with other people's children?

I am trying to show them that they may not always have control of the issues they face, but how they view the outcome is what really matters.  If someone makes you feel bad by saying something mean, you can believe them and let them be in control or you can know you are better than their words and be the winner!

Now, teaching this and the understanding that they will not always be the winner are tough because always being the winner means you are always in control.  For my kids, until they grow up, they can only control the things that I see fit for them to control.  No, those things do not always end with them being a winner, but it ends with them having an understanding that win or lose, they are responsible for their choice and how they deal with that outcome.   At 4 and 3, there is very little they have control over, because they are the kids and we are the parents.

I like to think that by showing them that they need to not blame others and think of themselves as winners no matter the outcome, will serve them well when they face their first big downfall.  Downfalls for kids are very different from adult downfalls, but they are often tougher for a kid to deal with.  There are try-outs for sports, big tests, school play auditions, driver exams, teenage job applications, and on and on that could result in rejection or failure.  If a kid has never had to experience a failure before these points in life, that first major failure will be far more damaging than if they have learned along the way that not all in life will go their way.  Kids that know how to think of themselves as a winner even though the result may not be positive remain in control and roll with things in life.  I hope I am helping my kids get there as a parent!