Winners

Losing is a hard concept to teach kids since there are so many emotions involved.  Winning can be just as hard to teach kids - and remember as adults.

Winning at sports can create an over zealous sense of importance and cause a child to base their identity on being an athlete or even worse identify themselves as a winner at all costs.  This would be someone who walks over others to win because they enjoy too much the emotions that come with winning.  I am not saying we need to knock our kids down a peg or two (although it might be tempting sometime) but instead we teach our kids to be gracious winners and treat others with respect even while winning.  I will be presenting 3 things not to do and why and then next week three practical ways you can help your child become a gracious winner. 

One thing I will say to do all the time is to celebrate your child winning. 

They should be rewarded for doing a good job and reaching thier goals. Celebrate with them, get excited, tell them how excited you are, jump up and down at the final whistle, or pitch, or at the end of their routine.  Don't hide excitement and don't forget to celebrate wins and a good effort in their competition.  Having said that, here are the three things I recommend you not do when a kid wins.

Losing Again

Losing is never easy.  It's not easy for the losers or those close to the losers.  Even grown ups can have their mood altered based on how "their team" fares in a game.  Losing is however more than just part of sports, it is a major part of life.  How you raise up your athlete to deal with losing can effect how they deal with some of the bigger losses they will encounter in their life. 

There are ways you can help your child with losing.

In the last blog I mentioned some ways I have seen parents deal with their children losing that I do not recommend.  In this blog I want to look at some things I have seen parents do very well.  The biggest thing that can be done is to keep things consistent.  If you are trying to help your kid feel better then that is what you will accomplish.  If you are trying to teach your child how to deal with loss then that is what you will do. 

Losers

Losers

The word losers conjures up a couple of images in my mind.  The first is slack shoulders, a bent head, and heavy sighs.  The second is the El Dorado Flame.

The El Dorado Flame were suppose to be a competitive soccer team, but when games finished with other teams in local leagues we were not very competitive. Score lines were normally 8-1, 4-0, the worst was 18-0. It was a perpetual feeling of losing.