It’s hard to have a sense of self at a young age. Kids are just learning about the world and who they are. When things happen, like mistakes, it’s difficult to not let it affect your sense of self as you are developing one. That’s the case for my kids.

My 5 year old daughter does not like making mistakes. She has been getting better at making a mistake and moving on from it, but with her kindergarten class, she has been answering questions the teacher asks and checking the answers to see if they are correct. She gets most of them right and when she has a few mistakes, she comes home and thinks about it a lot. She is wired a lot like me.

One thing that my wife and I have been trying to continue to reinforce is that mistakes are ok. In fact, if you aren’t making any mistakes, you aren’t learning or trying anything new/challenging. As a kid, you want to be barreling forward into the unknown and you are definitely going to learn faster that way (and encounter a mistake or two).

My daughter understands this, but also hesitates to adopt that philosophy every time she comes across something that is new or challenging that could lead to a mistake. The other day, I was talking to her about accepting mistakes and how mistakes are like your own personal teacher. Ms. Mistake will come around and let you know what to fix and then all you have to do is continue learning over time. The fact that my daughter loves her teachers gave me the idea to frame a mistake this way and she was tickled by the idea.

She also has been watching the Spidey and Friends show about making mistakes and learning from them. She has been watching that episode over and over again to ingrain the concept into her head (or so she tells me). Mistakes should be embraced and I wish I understood that earlier on so I could take more risks in life. Not crazy risks, but just ones where learnings are around the corner and brought to me by Ms. Mistake.