I have yet to meet a person who just loves making mistakes. Even for adults, who know that mistakes lead to growth, our nervous system’s first response to a mistake is one of surprise and usually disappointment. No one intends to make a mistake, so we are thrown off when it happens. We have to adjust, whether that’s to clean up something that was spilled, apply first aid if we are hurt, or try a task again, our plan has been interrupted. It’s only natural to have a feeling about this. Mistakes interrupt our plan and break us out of our routine.
As adults, we know the immense value of mistakes. Scientists are the best at making mistakes because even when a hypothesis is incorrect, this is valuable information. Mistakes are so normalized in the scientific community that getting it wrong is expected many more times than getting it right.
Yet, for the rest of us, the amygdala (where our emotions are located in the brain) has pretty uncomfortable feelings about mistakes. Even though we know that mistakes are how we learn (because we’ve lived long enough to see that over time this is true), we still have a brief uncomfortable, disappointed feeling about mistakes. But, we know that making mistakes leads us to adjusting our plan until things improve. In other words, we learn from experience.
Children lack the life experience to fully embrace the delayed gratification needed to believe that mistakes are helpful. Every child goes through a developmental period where they must learn the arc of change that comes with being faced with something that is too hard, needing the motivation to keep coming back to try again, and then the satisfaction of mastering a skill. Most children are able to face these attempts to try again, which not only lets them practice their skills but also helps their brain experience disappointment when making mistakes and the reward of working hard to yield a better outcome.
But what if your hard work does not yield a better outcome?
Let’s view this through the lens of a neurodivergent child with skill weaknesses due to a diagnosis of autism, ADHD, anxiety, and/or a learning disability.
Imagine the child who loses their things.
For a neurotypical child who loses their things, they will receive the natural consequence of not having their thing when it’s needed and over time will learn to recall where those things are located or remember to pack it next time to avoid the inconvenience of not having it and this skill will improve. This is how we develop executive functioning skills: By making a mistake, feeling inconvenienced, and improving the next time.
Yet, a child with ADHD is going to lose their things more often and likely not have the attention span to remember or organization skills to think ahead next time to improve the situation on their own. Therefore, the mistake happens over and over again. The neurotypical child is naturally rewarded by the satisfaction of solving the problem, while the child with ADHD continues to experience the stress of not having the lost item, which leads to this child becoming increasingly sensitive with making this mistake. In the mind of the ADHD child, hard work is not yielding a better outcome. These children tend to engage in negative self-talk because it’s hard to understand how you can be an advanced reader but always forget your water bottle.
Imagine the child who makes an unintentional error on a math problem.
A neurotypical child who makes an unintentional error is likely going to accept feedback from a teacher or parent to check over their work and learn the process of catching their mistake next time. Yet, if you are a student with inattention, anxiety, or you can do the math in your head faster than writing it down, you are likely to make an error many more times than your neurotypical peers. Each time you do this, it’s not because you aren’t trying hard enough or because you aren’t smart enough, it’s likely because you need a strategy to support your attention span. You know you’re smart so it doesn’t make sense that you continue to work so hard yet forget to write the right answer down. Making these mistakes becomes increasingly annoying to this child and they are faster to become upset, break their pencil, or rip up their paper in frustration.
Imagine the child with such high anxiety they have a need to control themselves AND others.
Some children experience such high anxiety that not only do they want to make sure they don’t make a mistake but they are also distressed when others make mistakes. Some kids master the idea that they can control their mistakes (these kids tend to have perfectionist tendencies) but experience high levels of anxiety when their peers, siblings, or parents break the rules, interrupt their play or work, or bring out a stern tone in their parent or teacher. For instance, some children I work with feel anxious when their peers are in trouble due to experiencing the tone of voice in the room. The only way some children know to control this is by trying to control others to prevent this interaction.
Many typically developing children will adapt to the learning process simply by trial and error. They will have the occasional setbacks and upsets, but they learn from them and step up their game the next time. However, our kids with skill weaknesses need the adult and systems around them to bridge the gap between where they are starting on their learning journey and where they want to be: Satisfied and proud of mastering a skill. So when a neurodivergent child is highly frustrated at making a mistake, try these ideas for support…
Below, I walk you through what I believe are the top five ways to support your child when they are emotionally overwhelmed by a mistake. I want you to feel prepared no matter when these moments happen for your child.
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