There’s been a lot of learning going on in our house lately, and it’s got me thinking: Do we learn more from our successes or our failures? Our toddler, Linnea, is learning some valuable lessons this winter, such as if she repeatedly stands up in the bathtub and/or drinks the bathwater in defiance, then Mom will promptly remove her from the tub. And, if she intentionally rubs apple sauce, yogurt, or spaghetti into her clean hair, then Mom and Dad will not have happy looks on their faces. Thankfully, she’s also learning how to do somersaults, sing songs, and build towers. What’s interesting to me is that she gets multiple types of reinforcement as she learns what to do. Some of it comes from her own sensory experiences—”It feels kinda cool to rub this stuff in my hair”—while she also observes the approval or disapproval of her parents and caregivers.
As a first-time parent, it’s pretty clear to me that this is an art form. I’ve been experimenting with using both positive and negative reinforcement, and I try to reserve the latter for situations that are more dangerous, e.g., standing up in the tub. But helping my daughter learn has made me wonder: Do we as people—children and adults—learn better as a result of positive reinforcement, either intrinsic or extrinsic, or must we, as the saying goes, learn from our mistakes? Some MIT researchers have found that when monkeys are trying to master a new task, their brain cells only “learn” when they do something right. On the other hand, one U-Mass professor says that people can be trained to seek positive outcomes so much that they take fewer risks, which can prevent them from trying new things or reaching their potential.
Both of these findings make sense to me. Sometimes, we need to experience success before we truly understand what doing the “right” thing is supposed to feel like. For example, when I was 15, my dad taught me how to drive on a big manual transmission truck. Over and over again, I got the clutch/gas timing wrong, and I didn’t seem to be learning from my mistakes. Dad would try to explain what it should feel like, but I just didn’t get it until everything came to together one time. Once I knew what success felt like, I had no problem. I still dumped the clutch on multiple occasions and freaked out at stop signs on inclined slopes, but I knew how to drive. I just wasn’t very good.
Similarly, when teaching children—or athletes—new skills that require coordination, it often helps to break things down into smaller pieces or modify the activity to make it easier. Right now, Linnea doesn’t really know how to jump, but we’re helping her do simple movements that simulate the feeling of jumping. There are some fun benefits to having a father who is 6’8″, and I’m sure he didn’t learn how to dunk overnight, either. Through little successes, Linnea will eventually be able to coordinate all of the body parts required to jump.
In emotional matters as well, we often don’t learn what we’re doing wrong until we experience what it feels like to do it right. For example, many people can’t stop their cycle of unhealthy relationships because they don’t know what it would feel like to be in a healthy one. Through serendipity or trial and error, they stumble into something—someone—wonderful, and only then do they learn something truly life-changing about relationships.
This is not to say that we don’t also learn from our supposed failures. I have, on numerous occasions, taken steps in life, both big and small, that could easily be chalked up as failures. For instance, I spent two years earning a graduate degree in Exercise and Sport Studies that, on the surface, isn’t related to my current career. I’ve been passed by for scholarships, jobs, and awards, and I’ve experienced the grandmummy of all relationship failures—the dreaded divorce.
Did I learn anything from all of that? Sure. Do I think I’m a better person for having experienced failure? Absolutely. Am I any less inclined to put myself out there? On the contrary. As I think about what I’ve learned in my life, from the alphabet to how to avoid a hangover (this one took longer than I’d like to admit), I know that Linnea will be well served by being set up to succeed while also being allowed the space to fail at times.
Right now, I am loving her Tot Clock, an ingenious device that helps kids learn when it’s time to go to bed and wake up (Thanks, Grandma Rose and Grandpa Larry!). When we start to read books at night, the clock turns blue, and Linnea knows it’s time for lullabies and snuggling up with her soft blankets. At 6:00 a.m., the clock turns yellow, which means it’s time to play. We’ve been working on this one a lot lately, as Linnea has a tendency to start hollering for me somewhere between 4:45 and 5:30. If she succeeds in making it until 6:00, I come into the room all smiles and sunshine, and I even push the special green “reward” light on the clock, which she loves. And you know what? It’s working! Some days she actually sleeps well past the yellow light, like this morning, when I woke to the sound of her calling out desperately, “Mommy, my yellow light is on!” And while I could have used a bit more sleep, I was happy to go celebrate her latest success.
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I Want to Know
- What has success taught you?
- What have you had to learn “the hard way”?
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Very interesting! I have no current blog, so… first, “I don’t know what people are talking about who use that word (fail). All I do know is temporary non-success, even if I’ve got to wait another 20 years for what I’m after, and I try to put that into people, no matter what their object in life.” Percy Cerutty
Perceptions. The great big manual transmission truck was the smallest pickup available, a little Ford Ranger. When we’re challenged it’s clear that the barriers we perceive get blown out of proportion. This exercise was intentional, I just felt like kids should learn on the hardest option, not the easiest. Too many people in this world couldn’t save themselves if they had to do it by driving away in a vehicle with a manual transmission.
If you choose to try this with a kid in the future, the best thing we did was start Emma out on gravel roads so she could bust loose and spin the wheels until getting the feel of the clutch. So it was, Good Emma, but less clutch, or, Do the same thing only really give it the gas.
As a pretty successful coach of young wrestlers – one who got pretty good himself at some techniques by drilling steps – it dawned on me that it worked for us because we did things literally thousands upon thousands of times. However, if you aren’t going to drill like that, what you learn is doing one part of the sequence at a time, and that’s the way you’ll perform the technique.
I looked back to the “Zen of…” books and one of the things stressed in the tennis version was to clear your mind as completely as possible, then watch the complete version of the skill while simply letting it absorb, then do it.
Later on, I realized that, as a high school wrestler watching University of Minnesota home matches I learned more just watching than I did in our practices. This really hit me much later while watching video of American freestyle wrestler John Smith, world and Olympic champion. Very arguably our greatest ever. There’s an entire video on his low single leg without any stop/start. Instead, we see it in real time in a number of situations, then over and over in various slow mo speeds with narration. BTW, I feel that it is extremely important to talk about the concepts – and ask, why does it work?
With all this in mind I changed up my kid coaching ideas by combining. First, watch the whole skill several times. Explain that it’s important to look cool while doing it and imagine what that takes. Then, try it many times. Then, after observing where the trouble spots are, go from the beginning to the trouble spot, work on that, then complete.
It’s kind of too bad, but teaching that it is important to look and act cool has a lot to do with success. Maybe it’s especially true in something like wrestling where kids seem to be intimidated just a bit if the other one has the cool shoes and singlet and seems to know exactly what’s going on. I think it’s OK, just weird to think about.
Ha! That’s funny that the truck was actually quite small. Either way, it had a wicked clutch. When I finally tried driving another stick car years later, I couldn’t believe how easy it was!
Thanks for the insight, as always. Coaching definitely taught me a lot about teaching and learning, and sometimes I really miss it!
Wow, this is such a great post and so so true. I think I have learned so much from BOTH success and failure. So I am going to stay in the middle ground on this one…however, one such ‘failure’ (or perceived anyway, as I don’t perceive divorce as failure) is my divorce. I have learned far more from it in the last two-ish years than I did in my 10 year relationship/marriage with my ex. I think that speaks volumes.
Jolene recently posted..Just breathe…it’s a new week and a new challenge
I’m glad that you are able to avoid looking at your divorce as a failure! It’s obvious from reading your blog that you have learned a ton about yourself in the past couple of years.
That age old adage that you learn more from mistakes than from triumphs or perfection…it definitely rings true in my life…mostly when alarms start going off in my head when I’m about to make a mistake I’ve already done once…
Totally. I think some people’s alarm systems don’t work as well as others!
What an insightful and interesting essay. I’m so glad to have found your blog (after your lovely comment on my own). I wish I had a dinner party to go to tonight — your post is a great conversation starter! But, alas, with a five week old, no dinner party tonight!
I’ll look forward to reading more in the future.
Aw, congrats on the new baby! I’m 23 weeks pregnant, and every time I see someone with a newborn, I can’t believe how tiny he or she is. I’m trying to prepare myself mentally to be back in that mode!
This is so well-written Emma, I almost have nothing to say because you really do cover a lot of ground. As much as I hate to admit it, that saying: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, really is true. Losing my dad 2 years ago really proved that to me. Death isn’t exactly a failure, but feeling like your life is falling apart after someone dies can feel just like failing and then again it can give you perspective on what really counts and how insignificant some failures are. Changing the subject, I like how you write about parenting, no doubt your daughter is going to grow up to be a very wonderful girl.
xo Mary Jo
mary jo recently posted..tepees on the beach
Thank you, Mary Jo! What a sweet comment.
I’m sorry that you lost your dad. I can’t imagine how hard that would be. I think you’re right that a life-changing event (whether or not it’s a personal failure) can be huge in terms of restoring perspective. Even little health scares have had that effect on me!
Hey Emma!
I wrote a blog on your topic and used your link!
Big love.
Suta
Auntie Suta recently posted..Successes or Failures
Fantastic! This was an experiment for me, so thanks for playing along!!