Michelle Gale on Welcoming Kids' Mistakes
Erik: This has been wonderful, Michelle. From what you're describing, the conscious parenting approach really lets children figure out, through their own experience, how to steady themselves, how to tell other people what's going on inside, and how to draw their own lines. Before we finish up, I want to ask one last thing. Is there something you think our viewers ought to hear that we didn't get to today?
Michelle: There is, actually. We never touched on what happens when a kid slips up and makes a mistake.
Erik: Go ahead, tell us about that.
Michelle: It matters a lot to me, and the short version is that we treat mistakes as something to welcome. A long time ago I was at Twitter, back when it was still a small operation. They had a sign hanging on the wall, printed upside down, that read, "Let's make better mistakes tomorrow." That captured the whole place. The thinking was that progress came from taking chances and getting things wrong, because that's where the learning actually lives.
Michelle: Here's how it played out with my oldest. He was on his way out the door to basketball practice on a hot evening, and he'd put a long sleeve shirt on underneath his jersey. I said, "Tyler, you're going to roast in that. Grab a t-shirt instead." He told me he'd be fine, and off he went. A couple of hours later he walks back in soaked through, the long sleeve shirt already peeled off, nothing left on but the jersey.
Michelle: I had to bite my tongue. Every part of me wanted to say, "See, I knew you'd overheat." But I kept quiet, because he'd already gotten the lesson. The heat was the natural consequence of his own choice, and the shirt was the error. If I'm honest with myself, the one thing I'd change about that whole exchange is that I spoke up at all. The cleaner version would have been to say nothing, let him head out in the long sleeve, let him get miserable, and let him decide on his own never to do it again. Or do it again and feel it a second time. Either way, children need the room to get things wrong. That freedom is the point.