by Sj Brown

Created on: April 06, 2010   Last Updated: April 19, 2010

Competition is part of life.

Pain if part of life.

Difficult situations are part of life.

Heartache is part of life.

Unfairness is part of life.

Bad things like lying, cheating, stealing and hurting is part of life.

The loosing makes the winning that much more sweet and besides, why would anyone expose their children to only 50% of life? It is a lie to encourage children to believe that life is made up of everyone getting the same treatment and winning the same thing.

In the real world, some people win at certain things while some people lose at those things. Then, other people win at other certain things while the ones who won at something else do not. This is life.

By shielding children from competition, you are taking a valuable skill away from them in that they do not understand the unfairness and inequality of the real world when they grow up. This makes for many long hours on the therapists' couch.

We must teach children that life is not always fair and this is done through healthy competition. When my son was younger, he played little league baseball and was on a pee-wee basketball team. The league wanted every child to feel "special". But guess what? Every child is NOT special in EVERY event or situation in life. When we forgo competition, we teach our children a lie, that they are special in an event that they actually are not special in at all. I took my son out of those leagues because he was not good. We, in turn, found something that he was good at, swimming, and focused on that.

I'm not saying that if your child stinks at baseball that he shouldn't play. I am saying don't lie to the child and tell him/her they are good at a sport or certain thing if they are not. And please don't buy into this "everyone deserves a trophy and everyone is special" mentality that will eventually hurt the child's self-esteem when he or she finds out they have been lied to by mom or dad.

Children look to you, the parents, to teach them right from wrong. if you tell your child they are just like everyone else in a certain thing (like a sport or dance or music) and they really are not, how long do you think it will be before their peers (who WILL tell them the truth) reveal your little lie? Children are more truthful than adults at times (thus, the cliche "out of the mouths of babes") and your "everyone is equal and special" mentality will soon be debunked like the myth of the Loch ness monster!

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