“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”
—Mahatma Gandhi
If you are a parent, how have you given your child(ren) freedom to make mistakes? How were you given freedom to make mistakes as a child?
2 thoughts on “Freedom to Make Mistakes”
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As a teacher but not a parent, I was willing to let young students try out an art project in their own way and in fact encouraged it. However, this isn’t to say that they turned out as mistakes because I encouraged creativity.
As a child, I don’t remember much encouragement or opportunity to make mistakes; I was allowed a lot of freedom as a child to roam around in the residential neighborhoods where we lived and I’m sure I learned on my own what worked and what wasn’t a good idea.
I was allowed to make a lot of my own decisions as a child/teen. I was allowed to decide by when I wanted to be home and how late I stay up far sooner than my peers. I was allowed to choose my own school and own classes starting in junior high. I don’t consider those decisions as mistakes, but others might.
I was in control of my own money for as long as I can remember. This was the area where I made the most mistakes, such as spending large sums of money for things I later barely used.
There are many other areas where I had more freedom (and thus responsibility) than my peers. Sometimes this lead to major mistakes, sometimes it didn’t. It all made me more act/be more responsible when I moved out to go to college.