Get a Widget for this title
RSS FeedDoes competition help or hurt young people?
Results so far:
| Help | 81% | 974 votes | Total: 1206 votes | |
| Hurt | 19% | 232 votes |
Help
Write now
Print
Invite a writer™
Add to FavoritesWin or lose, it seems everyone these days gets a trophy. There used to a time when kids were allowed to fail, because it was understood that the lessons we learn from our failures are far more valuable than the lessons we learn from winning. Such was my childhood; a time where we were encouraged to be competitive, because competition helped young boys develop into men, and young girls into strong women.
I played baseball as a kid, and even at that young age I knew that the only way to win a league championship was to win games, and the only way to win games was to push yourself harder than the competition. As a result, I learned a great deal about perserverence, discipline, work ethic, willpower, and many other lessons that have served me well in my adult life. So imagine my surprise this past summer when I went to watch my friend's son play in a baseball game; a game where there turned out to be no winners or losers.
"Who's winning?" I asked the man sitting next to me, as I arrived in the middle of the third inning. With a distasteful grimace, he said, "We don't keep score in this league. To us, all of our kids are winners." I suffered through six innings of an uninspired game that bore little resemblence to the Great American Pasttime. None of the kids in the dugout were heckling the opposing pitcher with taunts of "We want a pitcher, not a belly itcher!" There were no coaches barking instructions to the players, no parents in the stands urging little Johnny to strike out the batter. Because in this game, there was no such thing a strike-out. The kids got to swing the bat until they hit the ball. It was a far cry from the baseball games of my youth, where only the winners got to take a ride around town on the back of a firetruck before heading to the Dairy Queen for ice cream.
I sat in the bleachers wondering about the lessons that our children are being taught today. It's alright to lose, because even the losers go home with a trophy. How devastating it will be for these children when they grow up and go out into the real world, a place that is infinitely colder and crueler than any baseball field, a place where, oftentimes, there are no trophies for those who fail to succeed. I remembered a recent newspaper article I had read, which mentioned that many school districts are discouraging teachers to use a red pen to correct errors, because it may be too "traumatic" for a child. According to this new philosophy, if red ink on a child's math quiz can scar them for life, striking out in a baseball game must be the psychological equivalent of undergoing water torture at a Guantanamo Bay military prison.
I struck out many times as a kid, but it never resulted in a prescription for Prozac. I failed many math exams as well, draining many a teacher's pen of red ink, yet I never found myself scheduling weekly therapy sessions with a shrink because of my feelings of inadequacy. I grew up striking out and falling short time and time again, and I learned that if I wanted to succeed and get better at something, I had to apply myself. I had to practice. I had to commit. I had to run more laps, perform more push-ups, and strive to be a winner, because losing was an unpleasant feeling.
Today, our youth has been deprived of the gift of losing, robbed of the right to fail. You see, we as human beings need to experience the unpleasant things in life because that is how we grow, it is how we become strong. Our children need to strike out, skin their knees, fall off their bikes, have their hearts broken, and go home without a trophy. If we congratulate and reward them for every little thing, they will grow up to think that mediocracy is just as good as excellence. They will never aspire to greater things because there is no pain, no sting, no shame in falling short. Even though we believe we are doing good by shielding them from harm, we are accomplishing quite the opposite. We are giving them a false impression of real life.
Granted, it is possible to be too competitive. Sometimes our competitive nature sucks out all of the fun of a sport or a game. Sometimes we try so hard to win that we lose sight of the lessons that can be learned, like teamwork and sportsmanship. Yet I believe that it is better to be too competitive than not competitive enough, because there is nothing so shameful as to not try, and nothing so rewarding as knowing that you've tried your best and given your all. When you give your best, it makes little difference if you win or lose; but in order to give your best, you must first become acquainted with the feeling of losing, the proverbial agony of defeat. Only then can we truly appreciate our victories in life.
Learn more about this author, Marlin Bressi.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Hurt
THE EXTREME OF AMERICANA
"When I go out on the ice, I just think about my skating. I forget it is a competition."
-Katarina Witt
Wanda Webb Holloway comes to mind. Not all mothers would go to such extremes to see their daughters win a cheerleading competition. Then there was Tonya Harding.
Personally, I was too busy working and filled with concern about basic needs to really get in there and teach my children how to be serious competition. Gosh, I've failed in so many ways. I guess they all turned out to be go getters and self centered thinkers due to peer pressure. Their ability to deal with life and creatively work out solutions in any situation is top notch. I guess what I did teach them was basic Irish continuity.
I have throughout my life spent time around those who are highly competitive and they, to be democratic, repulse me. Therefore, they have their lives and their breathing space and I have mine. Sorry, but the extreme, "I have to be better than you" mentality, to me, is embarrassing.
Too much of anything is bad for people. Too much competition for children keeps their attention on others, on the outside. With this outter focus comes a neglect of self until people actually forget who they are. When nothing is there, how can you expect individuality, original concepts or even initiative?
In other words, if little Debbie's only motive (egged on by her mother) for reading more books is that her friend Sara is an ace reader, little Debbie will be a quantity person when she grows up. The way things look becomes so very important that the enjoyment of reading is smashed to smithereens by the whole facade of reading. After the crowd disperses, what's the motivation to read. Further, is reading all that important to everybody?
You know, I'll bet, for people who are so into "the way things look", that getting caught is the real crime.
We all know that this type of thinking isn't so bad. Just keep everybody so busy that they don't have time to do really bad stuff. And voila! You've got a predominantly Republican country with Democrats to blame.
Because I know how American society swings in extremes, I chose the "Hurt" side of this argument. Because even if children were not encouraged and bamboozled into being itty bitty adults with giant problems, they'd still have their talents and interests.
Push has come to shove and then you all stand back and complain that you have to pay taxes for the "collateral" of lower competition. People aren't concerned about your feelings. Okay?
I've seen kids pushed through the sieve of their parents expectations. It isn't good.
Every action is not a competition. Its okay to do something simply because you were born to do it. It's okay to focus on the action and forget the competition. We weren't all born to be salesmen, football players, basketball players or million dollar coaches. We are not all wired in the head for obsessing about how things look. Some of us see it in terms of how things really are. Some of us don't want to be hood winked into the facade.
Competition has its place. It assauges the natural human impulse toward envy and we all know where that leads to. But sometimes, it's best to fess up to yourself that you are not going to be a great basketball player and you'd best finish college.
When children lose contact with reality in the hurry-flurry of extreme competition, they sometimes turn to drugs and alcohol. But hey, better to be a successful alcoholic, right?
As Don King says, "Only in America".
Learn more about this author, G E Barr.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
