Allowing them to try, fail, learn and try again

My eldest son LOVES Lego. He’s now 20 so doesn’t play with it anymore, however when he was a lot younger, he was obsessed. He would build these elaborate and incredibly creative constructions made up of hundreds of pieces, all from kits we bought through the years. He would spend hours on it daily and through the weekend.? I remember spending time with him and watching the constructions of random pieces come to life.?

Fast forward the clock to only a few weeks ago, where my youngest, who’s 12, wanted to give Lego a go. We had tried for years to get him and his other brothers into it, but to no avail.?

We were in the mall where there was a Lego store and he decided to buy Lego (with his own money I might add) and try it. Fantastic!

We brought it home and it began. Now given he had never tried it before, it offered many challenges and yes of course opportunities. Each of these are lessons in life in so many ways, so to see it all come to life through the building of a Lego set, in my mind was kind of magical.

I would summarize it into 3.

1) Patience

?It seemed that his conditioning of instant gratification which comes from the use of devices, games and social engagement, is hard to reproduce with Lego. It seemed like he just wanted to get it done and complete, and fast. As opposed to going page by page patiently to put each Lego brick together. (I was the same probably and in the days of no devices)?

He asked me to sit with him and assist from a support and reassurance perspective, rather than doing anything for him.?And patience began to take hold as the muscle of wanting to get it done well was more overbearing than doing it fast.

2) Perseverance - Mistakes and trying again

This is an obvious one I know, but on several occasions, he went too fast and put some of the bricks in the wrong place which impacted future steps. This meant that future steps wouldn’t work, and he would have to trace back pages to redo some of the steps again. His older brother offered to help many times but I tried to ensure that it would be verbal support assistance and not actual building assistance. However, I did like how he wanted to help his younger brother in a time of need.?

3) Achievement/Being Proud.

There is nothing like a child feeling proud of what they have done, on their own. Parents, and we are sometimes guilty here, and want to help and support our kids, so will do things for them to make it easier. However, doing it for them cripples them as they won’t know how to do things for themselves. That is the power of the lesson. If he is able to put together a challenging Lego set on his own, then he will continue to build the muscle of “I can do it” and bet on himself when he’s older and in more complex and challenging situations.?

I believe there is a term out there called “exposure therapy”, which clearly doesn’t relate to Lego sets specifically, however it does relate to supporting kids and allowing them to try, fail, learn, try again and in turn succeed. We as parents won’t be there all the time so our job must be to support, reassure and provide them the courage to try on their own.

You should have seen the smile on his face when he finished building it and how proud he was. He showed his brothers multiple times and had it for viewing on our kitchen counter for a few days. We loved it!

Lego provided a huge amount of learning, from patience to perseverance, to the ability to be proud of a project outcome that one can spend hours on. Not to mention the benefits in dexterity and creativity. And making a parent proud. ??