Too Little to Fail

This post was created by a guest blogger (and my sweet husband)
You can see more on his new blog about being a dad. www.WingingDaddyHood.Blogspot.com

We love our kids more than anything. We always want to pick them up when they fail. Our baby is in the smaller stages of his life. His failures consist of trying to put food in his mouth and it ends up on his face, clothes, the ceiling and the dog in the backyard. It's seriously like sand.

This is what were supposed to do. As parents we are wired to be there for them when they fail.

Unfortunately, we have put our kid in a bad situation. We have taught him that there is something he can fail at and it's completely okay. About a month and a half ago Paxton started pulling up on furniture. It was a slow learning process for him. He army crawls. He won't crawl on his hands in knees. While he can still crawl the 40 yard dash faster than I can run it, he still was having trouble getting his greasy hands on top of the coffee table.

Once he learned to get his finger nubs up there, he starting pulling himself up. What happened next? What goes up must come down. And he didn't know how to get down. So, he would fall into a sitting position. He wasn't hurt, but it would scare him so he would cry.

Our solution: clap and cheer when he fell on his butt. He wouldn't start crying immediately. He looked at us. He was waiting to see our reaction. If we coddled, he cried. So, we starting clapping and cheering like it was the right way to get down.

Now when he's pulling up and the apple sauce has made his hands slippery and he falls on his butt he starts clapping for himself. He has failed and we have encouraged the same negative behavior. I can see it now. He's will be in middle school, standing up and when he wants to get down he just falls all the way to the floor and stats clapping for himself. What an epic parenting fail. Oh, and did I mention that his clapping his him just flailing his hands in the air. He hasn't made the hands touch. We're still working on that.