Your kid just lost a heated game of Candy Land. Now they’re
spiraling into crying and angry fits of rage, maybe even throwing stuff around.
You know the attitude I’m talking about. So what do you do? How do you calm
this child down, get them to stop screaming and learn to be a good sport? Well
it probably depends partially on the age. But I can tell you what I’ve seen. I’ve
seen parents offer to play again, purposefully losing this time so that their
child can win. I’ve seen getting out some ice cream or another treat to
distract from the game. There’s the parent to goes off to fetch a new toy, or a
bribe of some other kind. Maybe all of those things work, but are they really
the right way to handle things? And what kind of lessons are they teaching in
the long run?
I’ve struggled with questions about sportsmanship for a
while now. Many studies show that the way kid’s deal with winning and losing is
directly influenced by the parents. This goes much beyond observing how parents
react when winning or losing, to how parents treat their kids when they win or
lose. I have read many good articles lately on how to teach good sportsmanship.
Most of them centered on teaching the idea of having fun, whether you win or
lose. Also many things about congratulating the other party, and avoiding blaming
refs and other people, many good tactics. But what I’m worried about is how to
avoid the bad ones.
When your kid loses their soccer game, what do you do? They
feel bad; you want to make them feel better right? How many times has this
meant a trip through Dairy Queen on your way home? This concerns me. Yes losing
sucks, yes it’s not fun to be on the losing team, yes ice cream is yummy, yes
it makes you feel a little better. But long term, what are the effects? Are
kids learning to eat their feelings? If you solve a problem of hurt feelings
with food, in 20 years when they’re feelings are hurt are they going to turn to
food then as well? What about the new toy tactic, you run into the store and
spend $1 on a new toy. It’s cheap, you justify that it isn’t that big of an
expense to turn your kids frown into a smile. But again, 20 years from now,
when they are hurt or sad are they going to think the way they will feel better
is to buy something new? How many people do you know who do those things
anyway? Did that new computer, or car, or boat, or whatever really make you
feel better for very much longer? Don’t you regret the ice cream, or bag of
chips, or chocolate that you ate when you are feeling down? What about winning,
does every win deserve something? Isn’t winning supposed to be enough? What
kind of message do we send if after every good game there is a “treat”?
I thought of all these things when parked by a school where
there was a kids basketball game the other day. Many parents were walking their
kids across the street to a strip mall that I assume contained some sort of ice
cream or sweets place. A little girl was crying to her parents that she wanted
to go. Looking at the parents and their other 2 kids in tow I realized that
this family probably couldn’t afford to waste the money taking the whole family
to get a treat. The little girl’s pleas of how everyone else was going, and how
she did a really good job, were almost heartbreaking. I sat in my car eavesdropping
on a wonderful dad handle the situation. He told his daughter that he was so
proud of her, and told her to go tell one of her friends what a great job she
did. The little girl went over to a friend, told her she did a good job, gave
her a hug and came back with a smile on her face.
Granted something like that might now work in every
situation, and there are tons of ways to handle teaching kids how to win and
lose gracefully. But as I look at the little kids I’m around every day I wonder
if we are preparing them for the real world. They are going to lose hundreds of
things, sports games, board games, races. They are going to do badly on tests,
get rejected by friends, by girlfriends. They may not get the job they want, or
the car they want, they will have their feelings hurt A LOT. I don’t know what
all the right answers are for how to teach them to deal with these situations.
But I’m starting to think of a lot of ways that are probably the wrong way to
handle them. I’m also starting to see the social divide. When you have the
money is seems much easier, and definitely FASTER to solve those kinds of
problems with money, with some ice cream, with a new toy etc. The lower income
kids sometimes get taught the better lessons for parent’s need to improvise and
find a way to encourage their kids without spending money. Which kids are going
to be better adjusted an in the long run happier? I’ve asked more questions
than I’ve answered. Time to brainstorm how to teach children to deal with their
negative emotions…
