Enabling children to profit from failure

There’s a mountain of truth in the old cliche that failure is the stepping stone to success. Therefore, parents should avoid the temptation to scold or reprimand children for failure to meet expectations. Instead, they should use it as an opportunity to build their resilience and character writes Poornima Dilip, Mini P. & Cynthia John The death by suicide on September 13 of Richa Sinha, a class XI student from Ranchi preparing for NEET (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test) exam for admission into one of the country’s much-too-few (703) medical colleges, brought the number of student suicide deaths in Kota (Rajasthan) to 24 this year. This is the highest number of student suicides in five years in Kota, a small town (pop. 1,57,000), which has transformed into India’s most infamous coaching factory for school-leavers preparing to write highly competitive public entrance exams such as NEET, IIT-JEE, CAT among others. Nor are student suicides restricted to Kota. According to latest data of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 3,089 children/students nationwide took the extreme step of ending their own lives in 2021, and since 2017, child suicides have increased by 32.15 percent. Although NCRB 2021 data — the latest available — doesn’t disclose the specific reasons behind this alarming increase in student suicides, it does state that out of 10,732 children (below age 18) who died by suicide, 864 took the extreme step because of “failure in examinations”. The rising tide of student suicides — most student counsellors and child rights activists believe that the NCRB record of 864 under-age children taking their own lives is an under-estimate — has set alarm bells ringing countrywide. In June, ParentsWorld featured a cover story titled ‘Red Alert! Rising Tide of Child & Youth Suicides’ (https://www.educationworld.in/red-alert-rising-tide-of-child-youth-suicides/). In this feature, your editors identified exams-related stress, parental pressure and lack of awareness about non-traditional career options that offer high growth potential, as the prime causes of the rising incidence of student suicides. However to this list of causes, child psychologists and counsellors advise adding ‘fear of failure’. “It can result in stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, panic attacks, depression and often suicide. Intense fear of failure described as atichyphobia can prompt children to avoid certain situations altogether. For example, it could prompt a child to skip writing an exam, submit a blank paper, or not report for sport events such as a race or game,” says Dr. Mazher Ali, a Hyderabad-based psychiatrist. According to Dr. Ali, parents need to understand that failure is an essential rite of passage in every child’s growth process. “Failure can happen in many ways — falling while taking baby steps, or while learning to ride a bicycle, or learning to play a tune. These experiences are valuable experiences that build resilience, perseverance and character. There’s a mountain of truth in the old cliche that failure is the stepping stone to success. Therefore, parents should avoid the temptation to scold or reprimand children for failure to meet expectations. Instead, they should use it as an…