What to do about fear of failure: the tips in a row

Performance anxiety is very common. This means that in many situations, many children feel that they cannot live up to the standards that apply or that they are afraid of being judged. Children with performance anxiety may have high expectations of themselves or they may not expect to be able to live up to the expectations of others.

Consequences of performance anxiety

The greatest danger of fear of failure is to end up in a vicious circle. If something goes wrong or things go differently than the child expected, this can lead to the child avoiding situations. It withdraws from social relationships, stops trying in school, and makes no efforts to achieve goals. An additional effect may be that physical complaints arise such as stomach pain, poor sleep, worrying and headaches.

What is it about fear of failure?

We know three types of fear of failure, namely about learning, about making friends and about physical performance. Central and crucial in performance anxiety are the thoughts about your own functioning and expectations.

The performance of (school) tasks and friends is determined by the thoughts prior to the goal or about the task to be done.

In other words: a child with fear of failure only thinks about what it cannot do because it was the last time ……. Or the child thinks that he is not as nice and funny as ………

So if a child (but also adolescent or adult :-)) regularly says “I can't and I never learn” or keeps coming up with all kinds of arguments for not doing something by sketching all kinds of disasters, then there is a chance that the child suffers from performance anxiety.

Characteristic behaviors such as shouting, doing your excessive best, letting go of activities or underachieving can all fall under the heading of performance anxiety.

What to do about performance anxiety

In growing up and learning it is a normal phenomenon that things turn out differently than expected in the right time and that mistakes are made.

Very normal and an ideal feed back moment to learn.

Unfortunately, there are many children (and parents) who feel they have to be perfect. This creates a sense of failure.

But what can you do in concrete terms to help your child?

- First of all, take your child seriously and agree and acknowledge that it is difficult.

- Walk your child through his train of thought, as it were.

- Are your child's thoughts about the situation actually correct?

- What thought could help?

For example: Everyone is doing better than me …… .. Is that really the case? what is the evidence?

or: I will never win anything ……. If I practice well I might succeed.

- Learn and do before that fear of failure is normal and can stimulate you to learn something that you were not able to do before.

- Clearly state what you expect and how your child can perform new tasks.

- Challenge your child to do something scary and keep encouraging them during the task.

- Give appropriate compliments. Think of the result, but certainly also of the commitment.

- If you find that your child cannot oversee situations or tasks, structure them in small steps.

- Have a whole battery of well-executed examples ready that prove the opposite of the fear.

- Respond appropriately to the child: more insecure children need more kindness and patience.

In summary, you could say that it is important that your child learns positive thoughts about his functioning and his personality. The shortest blow to achieving this is to ask for evidence if the thoughts are correct and to challenge them to have other thoughts and prove otherwise.

When a child still has doubts, working with the cake in red and green is a great tool. How bad is it really and what red thoughts, actions and feelings can you turn from red to green?

Many children can very well use an adult who helps them to make the world clear and who challenges them in a loving way to achievements that go just a little further than the (false) safety of the known.