Parenting: Why you need to allow your children to fail

Dear Parents,

I have always wondered if we parents have a concept of what we want for our children as we raise our young ones through all the societal pressures and domestic challenges. Do we ask ourselves, “What do I want my child to be and to have?” and make a list of attributes and acquisitions? In all probability, we do, and the list will include education, good health, sufficient wealth and virtuous conduct as imperatives for a happy life, and we go the extra mile to secure them a future that will be rated as ‘successful’ in the eyes of the world.

However, in our attempts to notch up these prime life elements for our children, do we become sticklers for perfection, expecting them to be flawless and beyond erring and failing? How much leeway are we prepared to give them in their journey to adulthood—to make mistakes, fall behind and to learn from their failings?

Come to think of it, perfection is a myth. Neither you nor I am infallible. We have all stumbled, fallen, got up and walked to reach where we are today. We learnt from the hurts and hard knocks, and from the price we paid for the blunders. And those discerning moments have served us as sentinels, guarding our steps to the future.

Seen in that light, our faults have been our greatest assets; they have refined and defined us — like Japanese Kintsugi art, in which broken pottery is mended with gold, the gilded crack-lines only enhancing the beauty of the piece. We are what we are today not because of our perfections but because of our defects and defeats. So let us take our children as fine porcelain, accept their shortcomings and help them repair the cracks with gold.