Lauren Edmunds, founder of a school for children with learning delays, explains that mistakes are exactly where learning occurs. She warns that common phrases like “you can do better” can accidentally shame children, leading them to avoid challenges and stick to easy tasks just to get praise. To foster a “learning brain,” Lauren suggests praising the action and the effort rather than the result. This approach helps children stay curious and develop the intrinsic motivation to strive for themselves. If a child continues to struggle despite this support, she recommends an assessment to see if a learning delay is causing a misunderstanding.
Transcription: Where Learning Really Happens
I want to talk a bit today about mistakes, because that is exactly where the learning happens.
How Shaming Stops Learning
If your child makes a mistake and your approach is to shame them for the mistake, I don’t think that parents are actively trying to shame their kids, but statements like “You can do better than that” or “You’re not trying hard enough” those things actually stop children from wanting to try harder, wanting to try it all.
What they actually start to do is they start to look for easy work that they can get done well, where there are no mistakes, so they can get a comment from you that says, “Well done, you’re really great, you’re clever, you’re doing well, I’m so proud of you.”
So then they avoid the mistakes. What they’re actually avoiding is the learning.
You don’t want that. You want a child who’s curious about things, who leans into new information constantly, and who doesn’t have any problem making mistakes.
And then when a mistake is made or pointed out to them, they can turn it around and go, “Oh, that’s interesting, I didn’t see it that way. Well, I can see where I made that small mistake. Let me do it again.”
That attitude gets a child into a learning state and actually makes them more successful. When we shame children for their mistakes, we break them down.
Changing the Way We Respond
Going into the new academic year, going into any kind of new cycle, you can change the way you deal with your kids. You can change how you speak to them about what they do.
Praise the thing that they’re doing, that they’re doing well, because that’s action-oriented. They can do more of that. And when they make mistakes, praise them for noticing. Praise them for trying hard, because then they’ll become the kind of kid that tries hard and naturally wants, that’s what striving is all about.
And we make it so much easier for children if we can help them to stay curious. Shaming children shuts down curiosity. A curious brain is a learning brain.
When Mistakes Signal Something More
Of course, there’s the other side of the coin: when children are making too many mistakes and even encouraging them isn’t helping, we’re looking at either a big misunderstanding or some kind of learning delay.
Get it assessed, figure out what’s going on and get back on track with, “Oh, I see you made a mistake. How can I help you out? Can you do this differently? Should we try it again tomorrow? What if we did it in another way?”
I love that you’re trying so hard. I love watching you work so hard. It’s wonderful. Keep going. Those are the things that really make your kid want to learn and want to do better. If you can get it inside them, intrinsic motivation and an internal locus of control, they will strive for themselves without you having to drag them through school.
