Some children have a greater fear of making mistakes than others or might avoid completely doing certain tasks that they consider “challenging” for them to avoid making mistakes. This could be due to a combination of psychological, environmental, and developmental factors. Child psychology services in Dubai often address these behaviors by helping children understand and cope with these fears through structured therapy and support.
1. Personality Traits: Some children are naturally more anxious, hypersensitive, or have a tendency towards perfectionism, leading to a heightened fear of making mistakes. When working with such students, they would work smoothly as long as they are doing a task they feel confident they can do. The minute you start asking for a slightly “challenging” task, you would notice a change on their face, teary eyes, might turn their face away, say sentences like “I’m not doing this,” “This is difficult for me,” “not again,” “my hand is tired.” It might go further, and the child might throw a tantrum.
Other students would perform the “challenging task,” but the minute you start correcting and giving feedback, they start crying and showing resistance to listening. I once had a student who would shout, throw a chair, or bang the door whenever he was given feedback regarding his mistakes.
The other day, I asked a student to read a story at her reading level. She completely refused and kept asking if she could read from a story she liked, and she is confident that she can read without even trying to read a word from the given story. These challenges are common concerns for parents, and child psychologists in Dubai often help manage these emotional and behavioral issues.
2. Parental and Teacher Expectations: High expectations from parents or teachers can create pressure, making children fear mistakes due to potential disappointment or criticism. It’s like asking a child who struggles with reading to read a paragraph in front of his classmates or asking a child who can subtract 2-one-digit numbers to subtract 3-digit numbers with borrowing.
3. Past Experiences: Children who have faced harsh criticism or punishment for mistakes in the past may develop a stronger fear of making errors. Getting angry and yelling at children for making mistakes does not help children not to make mistakes, it teaches them to fear them. This is a crucial aspect of child psychology in Dubai, where therapists help children process past trauma and learn to approach mistakes with a healthier mindset.
I remember when I was in elementary (not sure what grade), I used to go to a summer school and there was one teacher who hit students with the ruler for making mistakes. I still remember how my brother and I used to have stomach aches every morning while waiting for the bus.
4. Self-Esteem: Children with lower self-esteem may relate mistakes with personal failure, increasing their fear of making them. For example, if a child got a low grade on a Math test he/she would feel “I am not good enough” rather than “I am not good enough in that area of Math”. This type of self-esteem issue is often addressed through child psychology services in Dubai, where children learn to separate their self-worth from their performance.
5. Academic Comparisons: Comparing themselves to classmates who seem to perform better can increase their fear of making mistakes. Did you hear your child/student saying? “My friends are faster than me,” “Why do I keep making mistakes?”, “I am not a good reader”? Support from child psychology services in Dubai can help children reframe these negative thoughts and build resilience in the face of challenges.
As we all know, every child is different, and what works with one might not work with another. This is a key consideration in child psychology services in Dubai, where therapists develop individualized strategies to help children manage their emotions and behavior. Here are some practical strategies that worked with different students:
1. Emotional Check-in: Before working with a child, observe their non-verbal cues and check in on their emotional state. Child psychologists in Dubai often use tools like the “zones of regulation” to help children express their feelings, which can inform how to approach a challenging task.
Green Zone: happy and ready to learn
Blue Zone: sick or tired
Yellow Zone: worried
Red Zone: angry
If the child is in the blue, yellow, or red zone, it is worth spending a few minutes talking with the child to see how you can help (ex., a break of a few minutes to play with a fidget, deep breathing like the “square technique”, drawing what is annoying them…).
A child who is not feeling well is more prone to avoid a “challenging” task with any potential to make mistakes.
2. Give a break before or after, depending on the child: I used to have a student with Dyslexia who used to cry during every spelling task; for him, this task is related to frequent mistakes. This got better when I said, “Before we start spelling, I will give you a 5-minute break to do something you enjoy”. For another child who resists any writing task, I would say, “After you finish the writing, you will get a long break and do something of your choice.” Such interventions are commonly seen in child psychology services in Dubai, where children are encouraged to take breaks to help manage anxiety.
3. Encourage a Growth Mindset: Help children understand that mistakes are a natural part of learning and that challenges help them grow. Therapists encourage children to replace negative thoughts like: “This is too hard for me,” “This doesn’t look correct, I can’t do it,” and “I’m not good at this” with positive sentences like “I learn from my mistakes,” “I can learn how and try again,” “teach me how and I will try again,” “I’ll try a different way”… In other words, model and encourage “positive self-talk.” A child psychologist Dubai often emphasizes a growth mindset in children’s therapy sessions.
4. Choose your battle: If the child, for example, has spelling mistakes, capitalization, punctuation, & grammar mistakes, decide which is more important to focus on this time.
5. Give the child options: For example, you can say, “Would you like me to correct for you, or would you like to be the teacher and do the correction? And I’ll show you on the whiteboard”. “Which pen color would you like to use?” or “Shall we use a green pen? Green represents growing”.
6. Use positive words when giving feedback: Instead of saying, “You have four mistakes,” you can say, “Oh, today you learned four new words.” Instead of focusing on the result if it’s not good, you can say, “I can see that you are trying your best.” Instead of saying, “Your reading is still slow,” you can say, “I am happy you are starting to read faster, and you are not sounding out every letter.”
7. Model Healthy Responses to Mistakes: Some parents think they need to be perfect role models and always share success. “I was the first in my class,” “I used to get 90s on the Math tests”…. Children also need to hear your mistakes and what you learned from them.
This way, you are a positive example of how you handle both success and failure. Such modeling is a common recommendation by child psychologists in Dubai to foster a healthy attitude towards mistakes.
You won’t believe how happy my students feel if they hear me saying sentences like “Oops, I need to focus more,” “Oh, I forgot, you have a better memory than me,” and “I’m not sure how to spell this word, let me check it up” as if they have this need to hear that adults, too, make mistakes and they are “ok” with that.
8. Set Realistic Expectations: By doing this, you are reducing the chances of failure and increasing the chances of developing self-esteem. You can start with tasks that you know the child has more tendency to succeed and then gradually increase the level of difficulty.
9. Discourage Unhealthy Comparisons: Remind your child/ student that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. “Your friend/s might be better in certain areas but remember that you are an amazing swimmer, artist, mathematician, footballer…..”
What is important is to find what works with your child/ student to reduce their fear of making mistakes and support them to have a more resilient mind.
By applying these strategies, parents and educators can help children become more resilient and overcome the fear of mistakes. Child psychologists in Dubai are trained to provide tailored support to help children thrive in their learning environments.
