Hi, I am Fiona Perrella, Resilience Educator and a Mistake Maker. I started my working career as a Human Resources professional, Management Consultant, Trainer and Life Coach working with organisations and individuals to assist people challenge their thinking and change their behaviour to achieve success.
Just because a child can tell you that mistakes are okay, it does not mean that they won’t react with BIG emotions when they make one. Why? Because mistakes hurt.
When my young children entered the school system I was moved to change my work focus as I realised my own daughter’s unhelpful thinking was developing into issues with self-esteem and confidence – the same issues that my clients in the corporate sector were facing.
When my daughter was going through her worst I felt powerless to help her. Nothing I said got through. I felt worried and frustrated that she gave up when things got hard. And I was tired of walking on eggshells making sure that things were okay so she would not cry. I was worried that my child would not achieve the potential that I and everyone else could see in her. With the help of a psychologist and her teachers and my husband and I working as a team things slowly started to turn around. The team gave her tools to calm herself, move and change her thinking. I also noticed how my child listened to others even though I had been saying the same things. Isn’t that always the way?
In 2012 I established Strength Heroes which creates unique art and play based experiences and works with children, families, educators, schools and communities. Our workshops and programs take children from crying to trying to flying so that they bounce forward when mistakes happen or they face a challenge.
We use a play approach because it is the fundamental way children learn. Instead of talking about what a mistake feels like and what they can think and say we create a safe space for children to learn to draw and animal to scale and create teaching moments when they make a mistake. We let children feel the emotion and then coach them to keep trying.