ListenIn Child and Youth Care, we talk a lot about presence, relationship, and the importance of ‘being with’ young people, not ‘doing to or for’ them (Garfat, et. al, 2018). But one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned in this work is something we talk about less directly: the power of mistakes.
When I first started working with young people, I was afraid of getting it wrong. I planned sessions meticulously, sometimes down to the minute. I built contingency plans for my contingency plans. I thought if I could just get it all right, everything else would fall into place—smoother groups, fewer meltdowns, more connection. And honestly, it worked. Until it didn’t.
Kids don’t show up according to plan—and neither do we. Our work is built on people, not perfection. And people are messy, unpredictable, and full of surprises. That includes the children and families we serve—and it includes us. Some professions may hesitate to break the fourth wall like that. “Wait, the human helping me is a human too? Just as fallible as I am?” I used to be afraid that if people saw that truth, they would trust me less.
In The Resilient Practitioner Skovholt and Trotter-Mathison (2016) describe how many practitioners feel responsible for solving impossible problems. I recognize this in my own work, where this tension lives in the space between how I am experienced and what I carry internally. For a long time, I felt that mistakes in that space would weaken the relationship or expose something I was meant to hold together.
What I have come to learn is that the relationship is not sustained by getting it right, but by how we stay in it when things are not right. Now I see it as one of the gifts of my practice: to walk beside someone in my full personhood, offering not perfection or tidy answers, but care, presence, and regard for their existence.
The hardest part for me wasn’t just getting it wrong - it was how getting it wrong felt. Mistakes don’t just sting, they sit with me. There's that gut-punch moment after something doesn’t land, when the room gets quiet or a young person walks away or a parent looks concerned - and all of a sudden I’m deep in that awful feeling: “I messed this up.” I’ve had to learn to stay with that feeling. Not bypass it. Not excuse it. Just sit in the “blah” of it long enough to reflect.
That part’s not fun. But it’s where the real growth happens for me. If I’m brave enough to let the discomfort teach me something, I usually come out the other side stronger. Mistakes have pushed me to be more present, more curious, and -ironically- more confident in my ability to respond to what’s actually happening, not just what I planned to have happen. Mistakes have helped me become less rigid and more relational.
What’s helped me reframe all of this is understanding what mistakes do to our brains. Neuroscience tells us that we learn faster and more deeply from mistakes than from doing things right. Errors activate different parts of the brain (Moser et al., 2011) encouraging adaptation, memory-building, and creativity. I’ve seen this in my own practice. Getting something wrong has often led me to think more broadly, try new approaches, or deepen the relationships I have with the young people I support—especially when I come back to them with humility.
In therapeutic groups, I’ve started purposefully building in room for mistakes on purpose. I plan with flexibility now. I co-create ideas with kids and families, knowing that we might have to shift along the way. And I let them see me not know. I let them see me get it wrong and come back. That models something powerful: that getting it wrong doesn’t break the relationship—it can strengthen it.
But let’s be real—this doesn’t always feel safe. Innovation, creativity, and outside-the-box thinking are wonderful, but they come with risk. You might try something new and discover a young person isn’t ready for it yet. You might miss the mark. I have. I’ve suggested things that didn’t land, introduced activities that unintentionally brought up discomfort, or shared something that didn’t resonate. Those moments are hard. But when I’ve been able to stay in relationship, to check in and repair, those moments have also become some of the richest in my practice.
Because in the end, Child and Youth Care practice is not about perfection. It’s about process. It’s about connection. It’s about staying when things get messy. The relational Child and Youth Care field invites us to evolve—not just in response to outcomes, but in response to each other. When we treat mistakes not as a breakdown, but as part of a living, breathing process—we open ourselves up to real growth. Not just for the young people and families, but for ourselves.
So no, I don’t like getting it wrong. I still feel my stomach drop, the panic, the doubt. But I’ve learned not to let those feelings drive me out of the room. I stay. I reflect. I try again. Because I believe in the work. I believe in the young people. And I believe in the long-term value of growing—honestly, humbly, and relationally—even when it’s uncomfortable.
And that’s what I want the kids I work with to be known for—not for getting it right all the time, but for being a place that keeps showing up with care, no matter what.
References
Garfat, T., Freeman, J., Gharabaghi, K. & Fulcher, L. (2018). Characteristics of a Relational Child & Youth Care Approach Revisited. CYC-Online, 236, 7-46.
Skovholt, T. M., & Trotter-Mathison, M. (2016). The resilient practitioner: Burnout prevention and self-care strategies for counselors, therapists, teachers, and health professionals (3rd ed.). Routledge.
Moser, J. S., Schroder, H. S., Heeter, C., Moran, T. P., & Lee, Y.-H. (2011). Mind your errors: Evidence for a neural mechanism linking growth mind-set to adaptive posterror adjustments. Psychological Science, 22(12), 1484–1489. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611419520
