Why teen mistakes and "failures" are harder on parents than you might think

I remember when my daughter was nine and she was doing her first clarinet music exam.

She put on her pretty shoes and pretty dress, and she'd gone in to do her very first clarinet exam so tiny. I remember how nervous I was, and how surprised I was at how nervous I was.

She was nine. It was a clarinet exam. It didn't have any implications for her life whatsoever. But I was nervous.

I remember thinking at the time…

If my anxiety about her performance is so bad now, how am I going to be when she's in her final year of school and the stakes are actually really high?

It surprised me that I was anxious about this clarinet exam, because I knew all the things that we know as parents.

Mistakes are part of learning.

Failure is good for our kids.

Identity doesn’t come from achievement.

I really didn't want to be a “tiger” mum pushing my kids and demanding performance.

I wanted to support her creativity, her own sense of exploring the world and doing the things she wants to do.

But there was this real tug-of-war as I stood outside the clarinet exam between my anxious desire for her to succeed and my knowledge that the result of the exam wasn’t important.

And this is the thing about parenting.

We can know things in our mind, intend to parent a particular way, but feel an emotional pull in the other direction.

Why is it that we can know one thing, but feel something completely different?

Why is it that we can know that mistakes are part of learning, and that the adolescent years will be filled with mistakes that our children make…

…yet struggle when they haven't done their homework, got the grade we wanted, struggle with direction?

The answer lies in understanding the difference between implicit and explicit learning.

Explicit learning is learning that happens directly when we intend to learn (e.g. reading a book, watching a parenting webinar).

Implicit learning is when we learn things less consciously through observation, exposure and experience (e.g. watching or observing others).

So explicitly I know mistakes are part of learning…

But implicitly I have learned a different lesson via a school system that used test marks as a sign of learning.

Implicitly I learned if you get a A you’ve learned well, and if you get lots of A’s at school you will be successful.

Implicit learning can hijack parenting intentions in lots of ways.

When you find you’re sounding like your own parents and never intended to.

When you’ve ended up in another battle over homework that ended in tears.

When you’re making study plans they don’t follow.

Take a break and reflect.

What’s the more helpful learning here.

And explicitly make a decision about your parenting.

This is why I have created this blog, so you can take a minute to reconnect with how you want to be as a parent and improve the Calm, Connection and true learning in your household with teens.

If you want help to learn how to unhook from implicit learning and parent the way you really want to you join my Calm Connection Program here www.kirstinbarchia.com.au/calmconnection