Failure Is The Teaching Moment
Consequence The Teaching Tool
You can’t teach responsibility in a classroom.
You can teach the theory. You can define the words but you can’t convey the real meaning of responsibility outside of experience, which involves two things we don’t like very much. The first one is consequence. It is the primary teaching tool.
The second one is failure. You don’t have a consequence unless you have a failure, which means failure is a part of the formula too. That might sound discouraging but when you do the math, the emotional math, it works.
Failure plus consequence equals “Aha!” I get it! But the formula doesn’t always compute because parents add another element to the equation, protectionism. It changes the outcome completely. [Read more…] about Good Parenting: Third of 4R’s – Responsibility, Part 1