Most stories of learning from failures skip right to the victory at the end. Here’s how to help kids struggling with the painful parts in the middle.
How to Rise Faster and Stronger From Hurt and Disappointment
by Laura Clydesdale
My daughter didn’t make the soccer team.
It wouldn’t have been such a big deal except this was the team she tried out for and made last year. Even worse, all her teammates from last year made it. All of them.
She placed on the lower team with a bunch of girls she didn’t know.
She was devastated.
This isn’t going to be the usual musing on how failure is a necessary part of life, that she took a risk; it didn’t pan out, and she’s better for it.
This story is, perhaps, more valuable: that owning the excruciating pain, disappointment, and embarrassment of failure can make all the difference between rising like a phoenix or simmering like a pile of ashes.
