The Rocket to the Ringed Planet

For grown-ups

What this story is about

Young children make lots of mistakes, and a mistake often brings a rush of panic: pressing more buttons, pulling harder, shouting, or giving up. In this story your child meets that panic three times on the way to a faraway planet. A moon-mouse navigator teaches a simple mission checklist, your child learns to use it alone, and then passes it on to Ollo, who thinks he always gets things wrong. The message: mistakes are normal, everyone makes them, and there is always another try.

Three ways to talk about it

• Make your own mission card: draw an open hand, an eye and a curly arrow on a small card and pin it where things often go wrong, by the shoes or the drawing table.
• Show your own mistakes out loud and use the steps yourself: "Oops, I burnt the toast. Stop. Check: the dial was too high. I'll try again."
• Praise the stopping and the checking, not only the success: "You stopped and looked before you tried again. That's what good pilots do."

Three questions to ask

• What went wrong on the way to Orbella? Which mistake was the funniest?
• What did the child in the story do when the hatch would not open?
• Ollo thought he always got things wrong. Have you ever felt like that? What helped?

Practise the tool together: Stop, check, try again

When something goes wrong, do the three steps out loud with your child. Stop: hands up and still, one slow breath, so the panic can settle. Check: look together at what really happened (which button, which piece, which way the handle turns) and find one thing to change. Try again: have another go, slowly. Practise it on small things, a jigsaw, a zip, a tower of blocks, so it is ready when something feels big.

If mistakes often lead to very big meltdowns, if your child usually gives up before trying, or keeps saying things like "I'm stupid" or "I always get it wrong" over a long time, it is worth talking to your paediatrician or a child psychologist.