Experience is the best teacher #3: A proper environment for learning hard lessons

As the child psychologist have pointed out, trauma and other harsh experiences stunt a child's development. Bad experiences do not “make them tough.” This means that there is a delicate balance between “letting them learn through failure” and letting them suffer. This is a difficult thing to describe and takes good instincts, but a few guidelines:

• If they know clearly that you are not going to bail them out, they almost always come through
• Be prepared to receive heavy pressure from the youth and the youth's parents. Just stand pat with comments about your confidence in the youth.
• Make sure they know that you are with them throughout and that you are not bailing them out because you respect them and think they can do it.
• If you really don't think they can do it, they shouldn't have gotten the assignment in the first place.
• If they can't do it, gently and from the background encourage and guide, so that they get the credit and sense of accomplishment. This can be in the form of prompts “Have you thought about doing it this way?” or as training “here, let us do this together so you can learn how to do this.”
• Social condemnation is the worst thing that can happen to a kid, so if their failure means that their peers will be down on them is not a good thing. You may have to “help” them not fail.
• Social pressure (“the rest of the group is counting on you doing this”) is one of the best motivators. Social approbation is the best reward they can receive.
• Debrief so that they understand what went right and wrong
• Procrastination has nothing to do with it. One of the best Senior Sermons was by someone who called me at 3:00 am to tell me he wasn't going to get the sermon done. I had him tell what he had so far. It was actually very good, and with a little encouragement I talked him off the ledge. (I always have a spare sermon lined up, just in case.)