The Gatekeeper: Would You Fail a Four-Year-Old?
Would you fail a four-year-old? I would. Not to punish a child, but to teach something far more important than earning their next rank: how to handle failure, respect boundaries, accept "no," and develop the resilience necessary to succeed in life.
BERKELEY HEIGHTS, NJ: About 20 years ago, I was standing in front of a KinderKubs class (ages 4–6) at the Madison Area YMCA in NJ, when I announced that some of the children would be ready for their next test.
When a Four-Year-Old Isn't Ready to Test
You could see the nervous joy on the faces of the kids I'd highlighted, but there was no change in emotion among the children who weren't.
This was the norm 20 years ago.
I've never made the objective or subjective skill sets a mystery.
Every class I've taught over the last 30 years has had clear objectives. For example, learning five different punches and their names.
There's also a clear subjective analysis of those skills: timing, power, speed relative to a student's size and age, reaction time, and the location a technique must reach to be effective.
Students know what they're working toward and what is expected of them. There was no negative emotion from the children who would not test.
Would I Actually Fail a Four-Year-Old?
On this particular day, a woman approximately my age approached me about her son's upcoming test.
She asked me, "Would you actually fail my four-year-old child?"
"Absolutely," I replied.
"Imagine 14 years from now when your child, now a young man, goes off to college.
Maybe he's engaging in activities that he shouldn't as an 18-year-old.
Maybe he meets a girl. Maybe she says 'no' to his advances.
If not at four, then when is the appropriate time for a child to learn about boundaries, standards, failure, coping with failure, and how to see a 'no' as an opportunity to grow rather than an excuse to lash out at the person who said 'no'?"
Teaching Kids to Handle Failure and Respect Boundaries
Failure isn't the enemy of success.
An inability to cope with failure is.
As I've discussed in All of the Failure Behind Success, achievement is often built upon countless setbacks, struggles, and moments when things don't go our way.
My Job Is To Teach Students About Boundaries
A child who learns that standards exist, that boundaries matter, and that disappointment is part of life has an opportunity to develop the emotional discipline necessary to navigate conflict.
That lesson begins long before adulthood.
As Rudyard Kipling wrote in his poem If:
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same
The point isn't to celebrate failure or diminish success.
It's to recognize that neither should determine how we conduct ourselves.
Learning to hear "no" without losing control is part of learning to live responsibly among other people.
That's why I emphasize self-discipline and personal responsibility. We cannot always control the circumstances around us, but we can learn to control how we respond to them.
Why I Refuse to Lower Standards for Children
As someone who has seen standards drop everywhere I turn over the last 30 years, I refuse to be part of that degradation.
You and your children mean too much to me, and the future of humanity for me to be an unprincipled steward of martial development and conflict resolution.
A gatekeeper's responsibility isn't to keep people out. It's to make sure they're prepared for what comes next.
I would rather lay my chest bare upon my Altar of Scrutiny and take a thousand lashes for the sake of one student's true success than lie upon a soft bed of riches built upon a lie that jeopardizes the future of mankind.