Loosing is good?
When children make mistakes, our job should not be to spin those losses into decorated victories. Instead, our job is to help kids overcome setbacks, to help them see that progress over time is more important than a particular win or loss, and to help them graciously congratulate the child who succeeded when they failed. To do that, we need to refuse all the meaningless plastic and tin destined for landfills. We have to stop letting the Trophy-Industrial Complex run our children’s lives.(1)
How do you get better at something? Trial and error. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” How do you know that you cannot master a task, skill, subject, sport, vocation, job? By doing the work, putting in the hours, and placing yourself in a position to be evaluated, graded, judged, and risk being told your best work is a C- or that you don’t have the basic skills necessary to do “XYZ” well. I was fortunate to be raised by parents that generally weighted the adults: teachers, scout leaders, coaches, and school bus drivers, stories about my behavior and skills against my story. I was encouraged to compete, even though a poor sport for a few years, for competitions sake to help me learn life skills for dealing with disappointment, setbacks, and learn the value of practice and time management. Are children and youth learning those lessons today?
The quoted paragraph from an article from the New York Times can apply to people of all ages. Click here to read more and ponder how that applies to our culture beyond children and youth.
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Note
1. Ashley Merryman, “Losing is Good for You,” The New York Times, September 24, 2013.