Teaching your child how to be a good winner or loser

Teaching your child to be a good winner or loser

It is our job as parents and educators to teach our kids the all important lesson of how to lose and how to win without being an ungracious %%$%. I started writing this post several months ago, but put it on the back burner. The topic was on my mind from watching the news a little too often. The ability to remain civil and be a good sport seems to be a waning skill. Some adults don’t seem to have the capacity to say, “Congratulations, you won, good job.” When I see an adult acting badly, It gets me thinking, what was their childhood like? Was love and approval conditioned on success? Is success measured solely by winning or losing? Now, after watching this historic election for the past several days, I decided to dust off this piece and finish it. My post about RSV can wait until next week. There will be times in life where we don’t succeed or come out on top. Tools for dealing with those situations gracefully are gifts that you can give to your kids from a fairly young age. This should be an essential lesson for people of all ages Sports and games of all sorts should be a normal part of growing up. Children who are blessed with siblings haven't had to take a break from social interactions. For all the others the quarantine has made that very challenging. After the quarantine, at some point, life will go back to normal. We will return to our normal social interactions. Kids will be put in situations where they are playing and competing. Find time to have real conversations about winning and losing. When your child is having a temper tantrum because they just lost a card game with their sibling is probably NOT the ideal time. When you find that magic moment, here are some talking points. Was playing the game fun?  Was the actual activity less fun because you didn’t win? Is there luck involved? Is there skill involved? If you practice, do you think you could improve? Is there knowledge involved? Could you study and learn? Tell stories about people who win and lose and how they act nicely or like spoiled brats.  Get out the stuffed animals or dolls and play it through. Exaggerate how sweet and gracious the good winners and losers act. Go over the top acting out the obnoxious poor losers or boasting winners. Who would they rather spend time with? Consider doing the following: We are going to try something. It involves playing a game. For the game, only one person can win. But in the big experiment you will all be awarded points One point for winning the game but three points for: Compassion. Being happy for the person who won Being kind and gracious to the people who didn’t win. By all means, it is perfectly fine to try hard and be proud of yourself for winning. On the other hand, losing shouldn’t be shameful or something we can't handle. We need to teach our kids about what is really important and to recognize when things are less consequential, so that they don’t get consumed with the importance of getting the gold medal. Admittedly some contests are much more important than others, but regardless, character matters! My daughter Lauren ( Inclusive Arts ) teaches improv and theatre classes, and told me about several of the ways she teaches her students to cope if an activity doesn’t go their way. If it is a game in which a group is working as a team to accomplish a shared goal, and one or more group members seems to be struggling with the challenge, at any point in the activity, any member of the group can call out ‘AGAIN!’ which everyone then echoes all together with a big celebratory gesture (changing the narrative from “we have to try again” to “we get to try again”). She also uses what is called “the failure bow”; if there is a competition or an activity in which the possibility of being eliminated or losing exists, they get the opportunity to do an epic bow while everyone else applauds. The goal (and usually the result) is to maintain the feeling of celebration regardless of the outcome.  Model good behavior. Show your kids the proper way to lose and win. Don’t whine and throw the game board across the room if you lose, or accuse your opponents of cheating. Don’t taunt people when you win. Pay attention to when your kids take the high road and let them know that you noticed!  Since Lauren weighed in on this post, she couldn’t help but point out that when her father Sandy would win a game, he would ‘Assume the Position’ which translated to doing a royal sprawl of celebration with a loud and satisfying sounding “Aaaaaaaaaah.”  It is okay to be a little bit of a brat...just keep it fun! If children are reassured that trying hard, having fun, and being kind and gracious are the things that make parents proud, and encourages other people want to engage with them, than a very important lesson will be learned.