Why the instinct to fix it might be the very thing standing between a young person and the
resilience they need, at home and in the classroom
A child fails a test, misses a deadline, or gets sent to the office; a parent gets a phone call home that makes their stomach drop. In that moment, every adult who cares about that kid, whether they are raising them or teaching them, feels the same pull: step in, fix it, and smooth it over before it becomes a bigger problem.
Here is the question worth sitting with before anyone does that: what if fixing it is the very thing that hurts this young person the most?
Thirty years in classrooms, alternative schools, and a youth psychiatric unit will teach you things no textbook covers. One of the clearest lessons came from my doctoral research, when I asked teens in crisis what they actually needed from the adults around them: they needed trusted adults to stop saving them, and start staying with them.
Why Letting a Child Fail Builds a Skill Called Self-Efficacy
A parent I know had a son who was struggling in a high level math class, and his teacher offered a way out: bump him down to an easier course so he could pass. The parent was torn, so before she made the call, I asked her one question: is he capable, can he actually do the math? She said yes, he just was not putting in the work; so I told her, let him fail, and go to the teacher to ask that he get the grade he actually earned.
She did, and he failed the course. Summer plans changed, and he spent the break redoing the
math; he never struggled with math again, because he had learned that in the real world, if you do not show up and do the work, there are consequences. That is self-efficacy: the belief that you are capable of handling what life puts in front of you. It cannot be handed to a young person by a parent or a teacher; it has to be earned through exactly the kind of struggle most caring adults are tempted to remove.
Mistake 1: Solving the Problem Instead of Reading the Signal
When a child brings home a failing grade, misses a deadline, or makes a bad decision, it is easy to read it as a verdict: this kid is lazy, careless, or failing. But behaviour is not a verdict; it is
information about what is happening underneath, and understanding teen behaviour starts with reading that signal before reaching for a solution.
A failing grade or a sudden change in effort can be a smoke detector going off; when we rush in and fix it, we turn off the smoke detector before we have found the fire. Before doing anything, pause and ask what this behaviour is actually communicating; if you are already three steps ahead planning how to fix it, you have left this young person’s turf and stepped onto the turf of your own fear, whether that fear is about a report card, a classroom reputation, or what the neighbours might think.
Mistake 2: Trying to Connect While You Are Still Dysregulated
Watching a child fail, especially when you can see it coming from a mile away, is frustrating; but a conversation that starts from frustration rarely lands the way anyone hopes, whether it happens at the kitchen table or at a teacher’s desk after class. The fix is simple to say and hard to do: regulate yourself first. It is okay to say, “I need a minute before we talk about this,” and come back when you are calm, because that pause models the exact regulation we hope this young person will use the next time they struggle.
Mistake 3: Coming in With an Agenda Instead of a Question
Many parents and teachers say a struggling kid needs to learn grit, or toughen up; but researcher Madeline Levine has shown that overparenting, and by extension over-managing, actually blocks competence. A young person cannot get back up if they do not have a secure relationship to push off from, and that relationship is what gets built, or eroded, in this exact moment. So lose the agenda, and trade “what is wrong with you” for “what is going on;” the first puts a child on the defensive before the conversation even starts, while the second is casual and non-threatening, and hands back a small piece of control to someone who already feels like they have lost it.
What Are the Red Flags That a Child Is Hiding How Much They Are Struggling?
Some of the kids I worked with in the psychiatric unit had been the “perfect” children in their early years, quiet and studious, with no red flags anywhere, at home or at school; what I learned later is that many of them were masters of masking, doing everything they could to hide what was really going on just to appear okay for the adults around them.
That instinct to hide often comes from shame: the painful belief that “I am a mistake,” rather than “I made a mistake.” When the adults in a young person’s life swoop in to fix every failure, that belief can be accidentally confirmed. When the adults around a struggling kid let them fail and stay beside them anyway, they offer the one thing shame cannot survive, which is empathy.
The One Question That Changes How You See Every Struggle
Most caring adults ask: how do I protect this kid from this? But here is the question that actually builds resilience: what does this young person need to learn from this moment? Jonathan Haidt argues that kids need challenge and stress to become anti-fragile; if we never let them wobble, they never learn how to stand, and shielding a child from every hard consequence makes them more fragile over time. A struggling young person needs to fail with a trusted adult beside them, not in spite of that adult hovering above them.
What This Can Look Like at Home and in the Classroom
Letting a child fail does not mean going cold or walking away; it means staying close while the
natural consequence lands, because you cannot influence a person you do not connect with, and connection before correction is what makes the difference.
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Pursue them, even when they push back: kids want adults to come to them, and they rarely
come to us first, so checking in, even briefly, tells them someone is still there. -
Name your own regulation out loud: “I am frustrated right now and I need a second, then I
want to talk” teaches self-regulation better than any lecture about it ever could. -
Let the consequence stand: the redo, the summer school, the lost privilege, or the lost mark,
whatever it is, let it play out; the job is to be the steady person sitting beside this young person
while they move through it.
At Signal Hill, we believe every child and youth has intrinsic worth; that belief is what makes
staying beside a young person through the hard moments not just worthwhile, but essential. When this kid looks back, they will not remember the grade. They will remember who stayed.
If this is a season where you are working on staying connected through the hard moments, my
free guide “8 Ways to Get on Your Kids’ Turf” has practical, no-pressure ways to start; you can
download it at drsuzannesimpson.com.
Listen to the Full Episode
This blog is based on the Get On Their Turf podcast episode: Three Steps to Set Phone Boundaries Without Destroying Your Relationship. Hear the full conversation on your favourite platform:
YouTube: Get On Their Turf - Dr. Suzanne Simpson
Apple Podcasts: Get On Their Turf with Dr. Suzanne Simpson
Spotify: Get On Their Turf Podcast
Disclaimer: Please note that the contents of this post are not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. My scope of practice is as an educator, and this work is intended to provide information for educational purposes only. Testimonials of lived experiences are opinion only and have not been scientifically evaluated.
Dr. Suzanne Simpson is an educator with 30 years of experience in classrooms, alternative schools, and a psychiatric unit for adolescents. Her doctoral research focused on supporting the mental health and wellness of young people. She hosts the Get On Their Turf podcast and provides resources for parents and educators at www.drsuzannesimpson.com