When We Let Fallbacks Happen

You have been supporting Sonia so much in all her classes. You email the teachers every day to ask what the homework was. You are so worried about what would happen if you backed off and let her take charge of knowing what homework she has she would not succeed in her classes. Her teachers keep telling you to "let her fail to figure it out".

The Truth: There is a lot of jargon out there now-a-days about "falling forward" and "letting them fail their way to success". Honestly, this concept is misconstrued and wrongly worded. "Failing forward" implies that we are "letting" students, our kids, "fail" their way to the top. First of all, this is litterally almost impossible to achieve. And, second, is exactly not what a parent, teacher, or any person should do when working with a child. The central idea of this "let them fail" belief is that a student should learn through their mistakes and through controversy they experience and that we adults should let them have those experiences.

What I Suggest: Please, stop using phrases that use the word "fail" and implies "success". This is confusing to kids and doesn't make much sense to us adults either. Instead, I encourage you to "let fallbacks happen". This may seem like semantics, but it is much more than replacement of negatively charged verbiage. It is a mindset. We should never back away from supporting a child if we are capable of supporting their needs. However, there are those times when a child has been provided support and is actively choosing not to receive the help in one way or another or scaffolds need to be removed to release some of the control back to the student. In Sonia's case, you need to step back little-by-little. Give her one task at a time and "let fallbacks happen" as they will. And when these "fallbacks" occur, support her in understanding what has happened and how she can prevent herself from falling again (Hint! Hint! Most likely with the support of a strategy!).



Reply to this post with a situation in which you have let "fallbacks" happen with your child and have helped them experienced success by doing so.