“Origami, or whatever your name is, one day you’re going to fail.”

My platoon sergeant at Officer Candidate School said that right after watching me climb a rope almost entirely on upper-body strength. I graduated feeling pretty good about proving him wrong.

Then I got to The Basic School. Their double obstacle course has you run the course, climb the rope, then immediately start over and climb it again. The first trip went fine. The second time, about sixteen feet in the air, my shoulders locked up. I couldn’t move. I just hung there in front of my entire company, realizing that loud, obnoxious platoon sergeant had been right!

It was embarrassing, but it was also one of the best things that ever happened to my training. That failure showed me the weak spots in my technique, sent me back to the gym, and taught me to be consistent. I wouldn’t trade that embarrassing experience at all.

I didn’t always parent like that

I graduated college as a twenty-two-year-old married father of a three-year-old, and I had no manual. My plan was simple: be there….Literally everywhere. I did backbends at the park until my back locked up (painful fall to the ground by the way). I got stuck in the Chuck E. Cheese play area (yep, I’m one of those parents)… I was definitely in the running for the Best Dad of the Year Award I made up in my head.

Then I started active duty and my son was born. I still tried to be everywhere at once, and I have the pictures to prove how that went: me asleep on the couch holding a Barbie or a book, running on empty.

Looking back, I get why so many of us become overprotective. We don’t want our kids hurt. But somewhere along the way I realized that being there and clearing every obstacle out of the way are two different things. If someone had cleared that rope for me, I would’ve never found out what I was made of.

Proverbs 22:6 says to train up a child, not to control the path. Training means you don’t become their lifelong, turn-by-turn tour guide.

Even Jesus let Peter step out of the boat. Peter walked…and then he sank. But Jesus was close enough to catch him. That’s the picture I try to hold on to. We let them step out, and we stay within arm’s reach.

Try this week

Pick one age-appropriate problem and let your child wrestle with it. Hand your young one a stack of boxes for the recycling bin and let them figure out how to break them down. Step back. Resist the urge to coach. (It’s harder than it sounds.)

Afterward, ask three questions:

1. What worked?
2. What didn’t?
3. What will you try next time?

That’s it. When that light bulb finally clicks on and they solve it themselves, they start to believe they can do hard things.

I wrote a free 7-day Bible plan on this called Free to Fail: Raising Resilient Christian Children. It just went live on the Bible App, and you can find it here: https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/77672-free-to-fail-raising-resilient-christian-children

Now I’m curious: what’s one thing you’ve been rescuing your kid from lately? Tell me in the comments. No judgment here. I’ve got the Chuck E. Cheese story to prove it.