“It’s okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are our teachers — they help us learn.” – John Bradshaw, educator and author

Whether you’re a second-grade student or a corporate executive, you will make mistakes in life. After all, we’re human. That’s an important lesson the Brunswick School Department teaches our students.

Although it may not feel like it at the time, mistakes can be a gift in the form of a learning experience. History boasts a long list of missteps that led to success, from the discovery of penicillin to the invention of Corn Flakes.

Learning from mistakes helps build resilience and confidence to take on more and bigger challenges. Yet, experiencing a mistake can be extremely difficult, even traumatic, for many of our youth.

And while most parents help the students in their lives succeed, I want to challenge you to helping them get better at failing!

Step 1: Make space for trying new things. In his best-selling book, “The Anxious Generation,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that kids need to engage in more independent play. Why? When kids spend time exploring and engaging with others, they benefit from a childhood that is fun and adventurous, with its share of mistakes. Independent play teaches them to become more self-supervised and to work things out themselves, skills that will serve them well as adults.

At a time when managing social media, smart phones and screen time seems overwhelming, the challenge for parents is to create an environment where children can explore and grow through unsupervised free play — similar to what many of us enjoyed in our youth.

Step 2: Let failure happen. We need to fight the urge to prevent children from feeling the pain of a mistake. Let’s teach our kids that failure means we tried. Failure means we learned something. Failure means growth in resilience. Imagine giving your child a high-five for trying something new that didn’t work out as intended — a chance to celebrate the courage to try. I remember seeing an acronym for FAIL — First Attempt in Learning — that I believe should be in every student’s life skills tool kit. As parents and educators, we can help kids deal with mistakes. We can acknowledge their frustration and disappointment, offer support and understanding, and encourage them to look for growth opportunities. If your student is down after hitting a sour note in a musical performance, acknowledge their feelings. When they are ready to talk, you can have a conversation about how they might do things differently next time. This might mean an extra lesson or two with their instructor or simply listening together to a professional’s performance of the music.

Step 3: Remind your student that success rarely comes in the first attempt. Share examples of how you (and others) turned a mishap into a success. Suppose you once missed an important appointment because an accident snarled traffic. Share that story and the steps you’ve taken — leaving early, mapping out alternate routes, etc. — to prevent a reoccurrence.

If your child went hitless in a softball or baseball game, remind them that the best players record a hit only 30% of the time, yet they keep trying.

I often hear from graduates who regret missing out on part of the school experience because they decided to stay within the safety of their comfort zone. Your student may likewise be hesitant to join a club, fear they won’t make a team or lack the confidence to ask someone special on a date. Acknowledge the fear, but then focus on the positives — the fun they would have in the club, on the team or with their date. Help them gain perspective by thinking through worst-case outcomes. Often, the fear of trying something new comes from a sense that trying is a permanent decision. It’s not. We can all try something once, try several times, try in different ways and so on, until we find that nugget of personal success.

In her bestseller “Grit,” psychologist Angela Duckworth tells readers that grit — a blend of passion and persistence — is the secret to outstanding achievement. This includes a willingness to be wrong, to fail and to start over again.

In the words of legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, “If you are not making mistakes, you are not trying hard enough.”

Together, we can help our students embrace mistakes for what they are: opportunities to learn and grow.

Phillip Potenziano is superintendent of Brunswick schools.