Let them fail?

"Why parents need to let their children fail."

That succeeded in getting my attention.  My inner mamma bear growled:  "Ridiculous!  I won't let my children fail!  What a stupid idea."

But I was quickly surrounded by memories of swarming helicopter parents, hovering overhead to rescue their children from any pain or disappointment...

...and in doing so, rob them of the opportunity to learn to deal with it.  Life comes with pain and disappointment.  How we deal with it determines our long-term success or failure.  We only learn to pick ourselves up with optimism if we have learned to do so.  Like every baby learning to walk. 

As Scott Peck said, "We learn to solve problems by solving problems."  (not by having our parents solve them for us.)

What does a child learn
by owning their problems;
by dealing with failure and disappointment;
and by figuring out (or being asked by a loving parent or teacher), "so how are you going to handle this?"

What does he learn?
The 3 r's:
Responsibility
Resoucefulness
Resilience

Don't rob them by using the 4th R:  rescuing.