Have you ever watched a child you care about fail? Really—fail at something?
Maybe they brought home a test with a big, angry letter at the top that wasn’t an A or a B. Maybe they struck out with the bases loaded. Maybe their epic Lego castle ended in a tear-filled, catastrophic collapse.
A feeling bubbles up in us, doesn’t it? It’s a strange cocktail of disappointment, anxiety, and an intense urge to fix it—to deliver a lecture that will magically prevent this from ever happening again.
Our intentions are good. We want them to be successful, happy, and resilient. But in our rush to correct the action, we often send a message we never intended, one that can cause far more damage than a single bad grade ever could. We create a confusion in their minds that can have lasting effects.
Let’s explore what’s really going on.
The Two Entities: The Person and The Action
The core of the problem is that we, as adults, often fuse two things that should always remain separate: the person and their action.
Imagine your child, let’s call her Maya, comes home with a “D” in math. In our minds, the “D” isn’t just a grade; it becomes Maya. Our internal logic runs like this:
- Maya got a “D”.
- A “D” is a failure.
- Therefore, Maya is failing.
- Maybe Maya is the problem.
We see the unpleasant action—the bad grade—and glue it directly to her identity. When we speak to her, our disappointment with the grade comes across as disappointment with her. We might say, “Why didn’t you study harder?” or “You have to do better than this,” but what a child often hears is far more devastating:
- “You are not good enough.”
- “My love for you is tied to your performance.”
- “You are the problem.”
This is where the internal damage begins. A child’s sense of self is still under construction, and they look to their parents as the primary architects of their reality. If the message they receive is that their worth is conditional, they start to believe it. A child who just needed a little help in math begins to see themselves as a failure in general. They start to break from the inside and, ironically, begin to fail in areas where they might have otherwise excelled.
The Fish and the Bird: A Lesson in Natural Strengths
Let’s try a simple metaphor: imagine a fish and a bird. Now, picture someone scolding the fish for not soaring through the clouds or the bird for not gracefully swimming underwater. It sounds absurd, right?
When we judge our children harshly for failing at something that isn’t their natural strength, we are essentially asking the fish to fly. Every child has unique abilities and environments where they can shine. But if we spend all our time telling the fish it’s a failure for not flying, it may never discover the beauty of its own underwater world.
Our job isn’t to force birds to swim or fish to fly. It’s to help each one find the sky or the sea where they belong.
The Voice in Their Head: Your Words Become Their Inner Narrator
Think about the voice inside your own head. The one that comments on your life, cheers you on, or criticizes your mistakes. Where did that voice come from? For most of us, it’s a remix of the voices of our parents, teachers, and early caregivers.
Every time we react to a child’s failure, we are handing them a script for that inner narrator. We are, in a very real sense, programming their future self-talk.
When a child is consistently met with the Performance Judge, their inner voice learns a brutal monologue:
- “See? You failed again. No surprise there.”
- “You’re just not smart enough for this.”
- “Don’t even try, you’ll just mess it up.”
- “They’re not going to love you if you keep failing.”
This narrator becomes a constant companion, an inner critic that fuels anxiety, perfectionism, and a deep-seated fear of taking risks. It’s the voice that convinces a talented adult they’re an imposter or stops a brilliant mind from sharing an idea in a meeting. The damage isn’t just emotional; it’s a thief of future potential.
But when we choose to be the Growth Gardener, we help them build a completely different narrator—one that is resilient, curious, and kind. That voice sounds more like this:
- “Okay, that didn’t work. What can we learn from this?”
- “This is hard, but I can figure it out with a different approach.”
- “My worth isn’t on the line here. This is just a problem to solve.”
- “I am loved, even when I stumble.”
This is the voice of a person who can navigate life’s inevitable challenges with their sense of self intact. We aren’t just responding to a bad grade; we are building the internal scaffolding that will support them for the rest of their lives.
Adopting the Gardener’s Mindset
So, what’s the alternative? Shift from being a “Performance Judge” to a “Growth Gardener.”
A gardener doesn’t yell at a rose bush for not being a sunflower. A gardener understands the nature of the plant they are nurturing. If a rose bush isn’t blooming, the gardener doesn’t blame the bush. They check the conditions:
- Is it getting enough sunlight? (Is the child receiving the right kind of support?)
- Is the soil right? (Is their learning environment conducive?)
- Does it have enough water? (Are their fundamental needs being met?)
The gardener addresses the environment and the process, not the identity of the plant. They see a struggling sapling not as a “bad tree,” but as a good tree in the wrong conditions.
This is the shift we must make. When failure occurs, we need to consciously separate the person from the action. We can, and should, address the action. It is perfectly fine and necessary to say:
“I am disappointed with this grade because I know it doesn’t reflect your potential.”
But this must be immediately followed by the gardener’s perspective, which reinforces their unshakeable worth:
“But this grade has nothing to do with how much I love you or how incredible I think you are. You are my child, and I love you for exactly who you are. Now, let’s be detectives. Let’s figure out why this happened. Was the homework confusing? Is the classroom too noisy? Let’s solve the problem together, because you are not the problem.”
By doing this, we teach one of life’s most valuable lessons: failure is not an identity. It’s a data point. It’s an event; a temporary state that provides information on how to grow. We give them a solid foundation of unconditional love from which they can safely dare to try, fail, and try again, knowing their worth is never on the line.
And in doing so, we give them the space to discover who they are truly meant to be – whether it’s a soaring eagle, a deep-sea fish, or a mighty elephant, strong and steady on solid ground.
How to Be a Gardener: A Practical Toolkit
Shifting from a Judge to a Gardener is a practice, not a perfect science. It requires intention, especially when our own ingrained habits kick in. Here is a simple toolkit to use in the heat of the moment when failure appears.
1. The Sacred Pause. Before a single word comes out of your mouth, stop. Take a deep breath. Your initial reaction is likely driven by your own anxiety, not what your child needs in that moment. This pause is your chance to choose a better response.
2. Affirm the Person, Address the Problem. Start by reinforcing their worth. This physically and emotionally reassures them that they are safe.
* Instead of: “I can’t believe you failed this test.”
* Try: “I love you, and that will never change. Now, let’s look at this test together and see what happened.”
3. Become a “Curiosity Detective.” Get on their team. Your goal is to understand, not to lecture. Ask open-ended questions that invite them into a conversation.
* “What was your experience with this? Was it confusing? Boring? Rushed?”
* “Where do you think the breakdown happened?”
* “What part of this felt the hardest?”
4. Co-Create the Solution. Don’t just prescribe a fix. Empower them by making them part of the plan. This builds their sense of agency and problem-solving skills.
* Instead of: “You need to study for an hour every night.”
* Try: “What’s one idea you have for what we could do differently next time? What kind of support would be most helpful to you?”
By following these steps, you move the focus from blame to collaboration. You transform a moment of failure into a lesson in resilience, self-compassion, and growth.
