(Organizational & Study Skills) The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Can Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed

Google doc version (to view or copy):  The Gift of Failure 

STUDY GUIDE: The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Can Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed

  • Author: Jessica Lahey
  • Publisher: Harper
  • Publication Date: 2016

Directions

Are you looking to enhance autonomy by providing students and families the organizational and study skills needed to be successful in a remote or hybrid learning environment? Consider diving deeper into this text to gain new strategies and tactics to encourage student independence. This is a great text to consider the parent perspective as well as the educator perspective. Below are a series of discussion questions to ask yourself as you are reading this book. These questions could also be used in a group setting to promote collaborative conversation. This resource was adapted from TheMainIdea.net.

Resource

Part I: Failure – A most valuable parenting tool

  • What motivates you? Think of examples in your own life where you were rewarded extrinsically and others where you were rewarded intrinsically. Share examples of each. 
  • In Part I, Lahey gives the example of Marianna. She is a student who gets good grades, but she has lost her love of learning. Her mother is having trouble understanding Marianna’s negative feelings. Take a moment to think back to some of the best moments of your own childhood and share these now. What attributes of school and learning inspired your favorite memories?
  • Intrinsic motivation consists of autonomy, competence, and connection. As an educator, what’s a lesson or project that allows students to feel autonomous, competent, and connected?

Part II: Learning from failure – Teaching kids to turn mistakes into success

  • Lahey addresses the importance of teaching kids to contribute in the classroom. Classroom chores for elementary students is commonplace, but not in middle or high school classrooms. Should we rethink chore contributions in upper grades? Are there other ways students could contribute in the classroom beyond a chore chart?
  • In the text, Lahey writes that for middle school students it is not a question of if, but a question of when, they will fail. Why do you think she is saying this particularly about middle school? Is failure a bad thing for middle school students to experience?
  • The issues students face when they become teenagers seem even larger and potentially more dangerous. When do you feel it is appropriate to intervene in the life of a teenager?
  • How is supporting a student in high school different than when the student was in middle school? Lahey wrote that in high school, we need to give students the trust and responsibility they deserve. Share an example of a time you abided by this in your approach and another time when you didn’t. What were the outcomes?

Part III: Succeeding at School – Learning from failure is a team effort

  • Think of a positive home-school relationship you’ve had in the past and describe the relationship as well as why you think it worked so well. Now, think of a negative experience and consider why it did not go as positively as the first experience discussed.
  • In Chapter 10 of the text, Lahey outlines various suggestions for improving family-school partnerships. Suggestions include giving teachers/parents the benefit of the doubt, making sure your children show up to school on time in a hybrid or remote learning environment, being friendly and polite, projecting an attitude of respect for education, modeling enthusiasm for learning at home, making sure your first communication is positive, and waiting a day before emailing about a perceived crisis. Do any of these strategies resonate with you? Do you have other suggestions for ways to enhance the family-school partnership?
  • Lahey recommends parents not sign up for their child’s school grading portal, which means giving up access to their grades 24/7. Instead she suggests talking to children and sharing the expectation that they will inform parents at the first sign of academic trouble. What do you think about this? Could you do this?