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Fear of Failure
One Expert Shares His Views on a Childhood Epidemic
By Jim Taylor, Ph.D.
Fear of failure among children in America today is at epidemic proportions. Fear of failure causes children to experience debilitating anxiety before they take a test, compete in a sport or perform in a recital. It causes them to give less than their best effort, not take risks and, ultimately, never achieve complete success.
Children get this destructive perspective on failure from American popular culture. Popular culture defines failure as being poor, anonymous, powerless, unpopular or physically unattractive. On television and in the movies, the losers – nerds, unattractive people, poor athletes – are teased, bullied and rejected. With this definition of failure, popular culture has created a culture of fear and avoidance of failure. It has conveyed to children that if they fail, they will be ostracized by their peers and branded as losers for life!
Many parents have fallen under American popular culture's spell of failure as well. They've compounded the harm that failure can inflict on children by also connecting their own love and approval with it. The message children get is this: "I won't love you if you get bad grades." They come to see failure as a threat to their personal and social standing.
There is no greater stigma in American popular culture than being labeled a loser. The expression "loser" has become an oft-used and enduring symbol in popular culture. To be called a loser is, to paraphrase a well-known sports cliche, worse than death because you have to live with being a loser.
Children learn that they can avoid failure 3 ways:
1. Children don't engage in an activity in which they fear failure. If children don't participate, they're safe from failure. Injury, illness, damaged equipment, forgotten or lost materials, apparent lack of interest or motivation or just plain refusal to take part are common ways in which children can avoid failure and maintain their personal and social esteem.
