I was watching Brene Brown on the Netflix special ‘The Call to Courage’ recently, as she was talking about vulnerability and courage, and I was pondering the ways in which we can teach these most valuable qualities to our children.

In the seminar, Brene asks ‘’Who here was raised to be brave, courageous?’’ and the whole audience raise their hands; evidently everyone wants their kids to grow up with a willingness to try new things and live a full life.

But when she asked “Who here grew up believing that ‘vulnerability’ meant ‘weakness’?” the very same people raised their hands and this was somehow shocking for everyone to realise.

In order to be brave, you need to be vulnerable

Brene asserts that vulnerability and courage are bedfellows on the scale of ‘how to be human’ and that we cannot have one without the other. In order to be brave, you need to be vulnerable; in order to turn up with courage you must be willing to fail, and actually welcome failure as a vital part of any process.

So as we raise our children, are we able to support them going forward? Can we present them with a willingness to try and fail, to have a go and take part, and actually mean it?

I know we say these things; that it’s not the winning that matters but the taking part, but we also send out an almost subliminal message that we must, at all costs avoid failure, getting hurt, being humiliated, and never allow others to ‘disrespect us’!

The thing is, if we are sharing a constant message of ‘don’t put your head above the parapet – it might get shot at’, as we see all too often across social media, young people will struggle to embrace their own vulnerability and honour their potential.

Many young people live in fear of humiliation

Thus, so many young people grow up thinking being humiliated is the most painful thing they can possibly experience, and they live in constant fear of it – creating a culture of violence and even death amongst young people at an ever higher level.

We must be as willing to fail as we are to succeed

The only way we can break this cycle is to embrace our own vulnerability and be open and honest about managing our own courage in situations where we may face failure or humiliation. When we enter a relationship, reach out or dare to try something new, we must be as willing to fail as we are to succeed.

To do this we need to love ourselves unconditionally, not because we are beautiful or strong, or wealthy or accomplished, but simply because we are!

By practicing self love, and honouring ourselves no matter how we turn up in life, we will soon see a generation who dare greatly and live with courage, passion and empathy. And that can’t be a bad thing, can it?