Why giving my daughter permission to fail helped her succeed

Why giving my daughter permission to fail helped zu sich succeedWhy giving my daughter permission to fail helped her succeedWelcome toGreat Moments in Parenting, a series in which fathers explain a parenting hurdle they faced and the unique way they overcame it. Here, Adam a dad from Atlanta, Georgia, explains the excellent a-ha moment he had with his daughter when they were playing baskettanzabend.My daughter welches probably about eight years old. She was trying to playbasketballon the court. She had typically had a lot of problems getting the ball in the basket. Her upper body strength may not have been what it needed to be. She wastoo short, really, and she couldnt get that ball up there. Either she couldnt go high enough or it went wide.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreIm certified in the Feldenkrais method of exercise therapy and its given me a lot of insight into how to re direct peoples learning processes. Im sure it informed my choice in how I approached the problem. I didnt want to tell her dont give up or push harder or keep trying. So I changed the goal for her.She was about to give up and I said, Do one more thing for me before you quit. I want you to take 20 shots at thatbasket, but I want you to miss. I dont want you to make any of the baskets. But I said, You cant just miss. You have to just barely miss. And if you get it in, you lose. I dont know why, but she went ahead and did it. After only a couple of shots, that ball started going in.She was surprised. I think it helped her. She did go on to play basketball with other kids in a league, and she did just fine, and that was great. But I knew why it worked - and I dont think she did, although maybe she knows why now. Shes almost 20 now. But it worked because first of all, we took the shame out of the whole activity. She was supposed tofail. So if she failed to fail, she would succeed. Basic ally, she was either going to succeed or she was going to succeed.Sometimes when we try to achieve a goal, theres a whole lot of baggage attached to that, and I just took the baggage away so all she had to focus on was the task. If my daughter had to shoot a goal, and she failed, it would change what kind of person she is to her,it said something about who she was as a person, and if she was successful. I knew she was susceptible to that kind of thought process because Im susceptible to that kind of thought process. By telling her she had to just barely miss the goal, thats such a strange thing to do that she couldnt attach it to any emotional resonance in herself. It was just weird.Like, why would you try to just barely miss? So she was completely focused on the actual activity. And because she wasnt a fantastic basketball player, she couldnt just barely miss. Instead, she got it in, because you have to be really good to just barely miss the goal, but if youre not that good, youre going to get it in.The Feldenkrais Method examines a persons ability to understand their own capacity by taking away everything except for the idea of functional movement. The method has people engage in some kind of movement task - like reaching, twisting, or turning, and adding some kind of examination to that which is curious, patient and tends to have no goals attached to it. If that activity is done curiously, it takes away all the stress. Its such a strange movement, just like the basketball goal thing, that you get really interested in exactly what it is youre doing. When you start paying attention to what youre doing as opposed to who you should be, amazing things can happen. When you come out of that exploration, you find that your body image has changed, you feel different, you walk different, and you can do different things.It changed everything. It changed the way she looked at the goal and the way she thought about using her arms and her body and it worked. I was reall y pleased that it worked. It didnt necessarily have to, but Im really happy that it did.Basketball has never been a huge part of her life or anything like that, but she was on the court and she was frustrated that she couldnt get the ball in. So it was a great moment for her. I just had an insight and I was able to sufficiently create alessonthat I didnt have any attachment to, whether she got that in the goal or not.This article first appeared on Fatherly.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people