The Power of Purple Hair and A Few Scraped Knees
By Heather Reid
P
Purple Hair
urple hair helped me to be brave.
I’m an oldest child, a Scorpio, an achiever. I’m terrified of
letting others down. Of looking stupid. Of failing.
This fear has kept me from taking big leaps
throughout my life. My method of
avoiding risk is to procrastinate on
opportunities just long enough
for them to pass me by,
therefore removing the
possibility of failure
because I didn’t even
try.
Whenever I do this,
I’m momentarily
relieved, if I’m honest.
Then I feel nauseated.
Then angry. Then
ashamed at my
cowardice.
Some families openly
encourage failure. If the kids
aren’t doing things outside their
comfort zone and failing, they aren’t trying
enough new things. They foster the idea of being at peace with failure, so they won’t be afraid to try, as opposed to punishment when they come up short. This is an amazing gift.
My dear friend Abbie has two young girls, and she does what I was never able to do when my boys were little: She steps back and literally lets them fall (within reason, keeping trips to the emergency room out of the picture is the goal). She allows them to pick a precarious path if they wish, then see the results of their gambles. I feel myself lurching forward when I see them teeter, nearly fall, actually fall. She bites her lip and observes. They look around, brush themselves off, get up and try again, or move on. Sometimes they howl for help, and she’s right there. They know they have a safe place to land.
As a result, these girls are daring. They are independent, resilient risk takers. Will that translate into more adventurous life choices? Only time will tell, but this foundation formed through scraped knees and some rescues from the playground can’t hurt.