An Open Letter to Parents: Fragility Will Hurt Your Child More than Failure Will
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The joy of receiving a puppy on Christmas morning is unforgettable—but the greater gift is the grit to face life’s challenges.
By Dr. Barrett Mosbacker
Dear Parents,
One of my fondest memories as a father was watching my young daughters open their gifts on Christmas morning. One Christmas in particular stands out. We had hidden a ten-week-old Golden Retriever puppy and tried to keep him quiet on Christmas Eve until the big reveal. The joy on my daughters’ faces when they received that gift is something I will never forget.
As wonderful as that moment was, I want to encourage you to give your children an even greater gift—a gift that will last them a lifetime.
The Marshmallow Experiment
In the late 1960s, researchers at Stanford University conducted what became known as the “marshmallow experiment.” Children were placed in a room with a marshmallow on the table. They were told they could eat it immediately, or they could wait fifteen minutes without touching it and receive a second marshmallow.
For a four-year-old, fifteen minutes feels like an eternity. Some children resisted, others gave in. But years later, when researchers followed up, they found something remarkable: those who had waited scored significantly higher on standardized tests and demonstrated better academic and social outcomes than those who had not.
The lesson is clear. A child’s success depends less on I.Q. than on what might be called C.Q.—their Character Quotient. The ability to persevere, delay gratification, and withstand challenge is more predictive of future flourishing than raw intelligence.
Fragility Versus Failure
This leads to an important truth for us as Christian parents: fragility will hurt your child more than failure will.
Failure, while painful in the moment, is a powerful teacher. It builds resilience, humility, and perseverance. Fragility, on the other hand, is the inability or unwillingness to endure hardship. When children are shielded from every difficulty, they are robbed of the opportunity to grow strong in character.
As one private school leader observed:
Our kids don’t put up with a lot of suffering. They don’t have a threshold for it. They’re protected against it quite a bit. And when they do get uncomfortable, we hear from their parents. What kids need more than anything is a little hardship: some challenge, some deprivation that they can overcome.
Fragility breeds weakness. Failure, embraced with perseverance and faith, produces strength.
Practical Ways to Cultivate Grit
So how can we help our children grow in grit and godly character?
Set high standards for character, and model them yourself. Our culture constantly lowers the bar, but parents must resist. We are called to raise the standard, not follow the downward drift.
Allow your children to struggle and fail. Protecting them from every difficulty might feel loving, but in truth it is harmful. Struggle is not the enemy. Fragility is.
Teach them rigor. In Christian schools, rigor is not about piling on more work. It is the balance of complexity and independence—helping students wrestle with problems and learn to do so on their own. Let them wrestle with their work. Don’t do it for them and don’t let them take the easy way out.
Require responsibility in the little things. Navy Admiral William McRaven once told graduates, “If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.” Small tasks done well form the foundation for greater responsibilities. Jesus said the same long before: “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much” (Luke 16:10).
Give them real work. Your home is not a hotel, and you are not a bellhop. Chores matter. Good habits shape good character. I remember washing dishes every day for twenty-six weeks, earning fifty cents a week so I could buy a $13 Timex watch. That small discipline taught me lessons worth far more than the watch.
The Gift of Gospel Grit
As Christian parents, we are not simply raising children who can pass exams or earn degrees. We are raising young men and women who are called to love God, serve others, and persevere in faith through trials. The Bible tells us that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3–4).
The greatest gift you can give your children is not ease or protection, but the strength of grit shaped by the gospel. Allow them to struggle. Insist on responsibility. Hold them to high standards. Help them wait for life’s marshmallows.
In the end, fragility will harm them far more than failure ever will. But through perseverance, character, and faith, they will be prepared not only for college and career, but for a faithful life of service to Christ.
No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley. It is, therefore, to the advantage even if good men, to the end that they may be unafraid, to live constantly amidst alarms.—Seneca
Sincerely,
A Fellow Parent and Christian Educator
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It is important to note that delayed gratification was correlated with long-term success, and subsequent research has shown that contextual factors also play a significant role in shaping those outcomes.
Seneca. (n.d.). On providence (J. W. Basore, Trans.). In Stoics.com. Retrieved August 17, 2025, from Seneca. (n.d.). De providentia (On Providence) (J. W. Basore, Trans.). In Seneca’s Moral Essays, Volume I (Moral Essays: On Providence; On Firmness; On Anger; On Mercy) [Website]. Retrieved August 17, 2025, from https://www.stoics.com/seneca_essays_book_1.html