In my article Why Kids Need to Learn to Lose to Win in Life we started to look at the important life coping skills that come from kids experiencing loss in sports or a failing grade or even facing consequences of their actions or inactions.
Many kids are missing out on this experience because of the trend towards including everyone and rewarding everyone for just participating.
Mediocrity not an Option in Higher Education and Work Force
As teens and adults, our children won’t be able to just show up to their high school, college, or university courses and pass them. They won’t be able to go to a potential place of employment and get and keep a job simply because they showed up for the interview.
That’s not how life works. Life works if we have goals and a sense of competition, both within ourselves driving us to be better than we are, and in regards to each other that makes us the best person for the job over the 30 other applicants vying for the same position.
Competition teaches Perseverance and Stick-to-it-iveness
Competition is necessary because striving for a particular outcome, despite troubles or setbacks along the way, encourages perseverance and persistence, or stick-to-it-iveness. It allows children to focus on an activity or a set of skills and become better than they were when they started, and better at it than other children (and that’s not wrong).
Wayne Gretzky, Steve Jobs, and Nelson Mandela didn’t become the best at what they did or achieve what they did by staying the same. They worked, and strove, and experienced failure and setbacks many times before becoming the people we now revere them for being.
Competition allows children to feel the pride that comes from accomplishment, of having to work for something and feel that sense of accomplishment when they finally see the outcome of those efforts. It doesn’t always mean making it in first place, and not making it in first place is okay.
We seem to be stuck in this thinking that competition is all about who wins the game. With the impending winter Olympics, obviously, only the athletes who win are going to go home with any medals. But for many athletes, who have no hope of reaching the podium, it’s all about experience.
Learning how to get up after a fall and continue on to the end of the program. Persevering to achieve personal best scores, or prove to themselves that they can do it.
We seem to forget that there’s more to life than winning, it’s the journey and that you finish the race. Without competition, there is no race, there is no journey, and there is no celebration when you’ve done more than you ever thought possible.
Competition is an opportunity for our kids to think about what they can do differently and improve their individual performance to help them be a more effective member of the team -- in school, in sports, in life. (5)
We Are All Different and That’s Okay
Getting back to the kids ... It's one thing to encourage your child's dented spirits by reminding them of the fun they had, and teaching them how to play fair and take turns. But the reality is they're not always going to win, there are always going to be kids who can do things better than them, and there are going to be things that your kids can do that no one else can do.
The thing is to teach kids that this is okay. That we're all good and gifted at something and often those somethings are all completely different. We're not all the same. But we can all work together, using those strengths, and build a better team to achieve an end goal — even if that end result is not a win.
No single hockey player, baseball player, basketball player, pitcrew member has the same skills and abilities as another. They’re all individuals.
If we started to celebrate and include this individuality in our teams and activities I think our kids will benefit more in the long run. They will feel like they fit in. They will feel included. And when their team wins or loses they will still have that sense of being part of a team and contributing to that effort.
This kind of thinking that we are all equal and that everyone should be rewarded has an unintended effect of making those who strive and work hard for good results to stop trying to achieve anything.
This effort to eliminate competition and awards for winners is only helping to poorly equip a generation of kids who don't know how to handle failure and to hear the word, “No.”
Instead of letting our kids feel this real-life emotion and instead of teaching them how to pick themselves up, brush themselves off and try again, parents and teachers continue to change the circumstances of their play so that children don't feel like they've failed.
In essence, we’re changing the conditions of the test. Changing the conditions of the test so they can win, cheats our kids out of a very important life coping skill that they will need in those instances of when life says “No.”
Sources:
1. Losing Is Good for You. Merryman, Ashley. New York Times. Web. Accessed: Jan 15, 2014.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/25/opinion/losing-is-good-for-you.html?_r=0
2. Why Parents Need to Let Their Children Fail. Lahey, Jessica. The Atlantic. Web. Accessed: Jan 15, 2014.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/why-parents-need-to-let-their-children-fail/272603
3. Why we need to teach our kids how to fail. Lang, Amanda. The Globe and Mail. Web. Accessed: Jan 15, 2014.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/why-we-need-to-teach-our-kids-how-to-fail/article4104820
4. Can a Parent Do Too Much for Their Child? An Examination By Parenting Professionals of the Concept of Overparenting. Locke, Judith Y, et al. Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Australian Journal of Guidance and Counselling. Volume 22. Issue 2. 2012. Pp. 249-265.
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FJGC%2FJGC22_02%2FS1037291112000295a.pdf&code=dba61db0c06058acb38b329bcd41b762
5. Why We Should Let Our Kids Fail. Parent Walravens, Samantha. ModernMom. Web. Accessed: Jan 15, 2014.
http://www.modernmom.com/690ff96c-4e3e-11e3-b437-bc764e0546c6.html
6. Why You Should Let Your Child Fail The Benefits of Natural Consequences. Lehman, James. Empowering Parents. Web. Accessed: Jan 15, 2014.
http://www.empoweringparents.com/The-Benefits-of-Natural-Consequences.php#
Reviewed January 16, 2014
by Michele Blacksberg RN
Edited by Jody Smith