ACTIVITIES TO LEARN ABOUT FAILING FORWARD

By Luke McKenna

Resilience is a crucial life skill for all of us. Whether it is a relationship ending, a poor result on an exam, a sporting fixture lost or a job application that got knocked back- we need to learn how to cope with these things. We need to use this skill often.

Life is a great teacher of resilience. And if we can manage to pull ourselves together again after a setback, it’s empowering to be able to move forward or experience some success further down the track.

Where do kids learn resilience if they are never allowed to experience set backs, mistakes, challenges, even failure? In our society kids can’t fall off trampolines anymore, because they all have nets on them. At birthday parties- if "pass the parcel" is played, every layer gets a prize. Where are we giving young people the opportunity to learn about hardship, struggle, losing and hanging in there, if everyone always wins a prize? How can we learn about getting back up, when you’re not allowed to fall down? After all, “children aren’t made of china” (McCaskill, 2002).

Try these fun activities in Pastoral Care / Wellbeing classes during the next month to encourage your students to try, fail, learn and move forward.

BIG FISH SMALL FISH (TOPIC: FAILING FORWARD) http://www.unleashingpersonalpotential.com.au/big-fish-small-fish

CLAP SNAP STAMP (TOPIC: FAILING FORWARD) http://www.unleashingpersonalpotential.com.au/clap-snap-stamp

For teachers, read the full article here, which gives a good background about “learning to bounce”.