Many parents today believe that every child should be a winner. They don’t want their kid to experience losing. But sometimes falling short is an important lesson that should be learned throughout life.
While succeeding is a good thing and can help boost a child’s confidence, always winning can create a comatose lifestyle. Kids can become complacent and not willing to work hard since they know they’re always going to win. It can also lower their confidence, because the child won’t have any belief in their abilities since they’ve never been tested.
Now don’t get me wrong. Parents should want their child to be successful, but they should also want them to work for it. It’s clear that there’s a problem with the parenting methods when the kids are complaining that they didn’t get a trophy for being last place in a tournament. The ones who worked hard and were awarded first place shouldn’t have to share their win with the group who sat around and picked their noses.
Parents can teach their kids to learn from their failures and use them to become better people. As kids grow up, they will have to compete for jobs and other important opportunities and will sometimes have to accept defeat. If kids have grown accustomed to always winning, how will they be able to handle losing or failing at a job or other activity?
Teaching children that they won’t always be on top helps them learn how to make adjustments and do better the next time. Yes, most of these kids are little, so their parents don’t want them to be upset. However, showing these kids that winning is not everything and that things can be learned from not succeeding will assist them in becoming stronger for the challenges that will come later in their lives.