I heard a graduation address last week from J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter.  We expected sage advice from her main character, Harry, but we got so much more.  She surprised the audience by not talking about her success as the author of the most wildly popular books in history.  Instead, she talked about the importance of failure and she talked about imagination.

She challenged this audience to fail, to realize that in life you will fail sometime, somewhere, if you have not already.  But not just failing for itself, but to learn one of life’s most important lessons.  Failure allows us to develop the inner resources of resilience – the ability to overcome disappointment and defeat, and to persist, never giving up until we make progress toward our goals.  Failing is hard, it can be painful, but it packs powerful lessons.

The lesson for parents and teachers is that we deny our kids the opportunity to develop resilience if we lower expectations or do for our kids what they could attempt to do for themselves.   Thank you J.K. Rowling.  How do you think kids can learn from failure? 

David Walsh