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Competition, within reasonable limits, is not only healthy, but vital for a young person's readiness to succeed in life. To deny this is to ignore the nature of the world we inhabit: Competitiveness is a motivation in just about everything we do. It starts in the womb when we kick and stretch competing for space, until, finally, we lose the battle and have to emerge. It ends as we compete with actuarial tables and try to beat the odds that our longevity will not exceed those lifespan averages.

In between the two foregoing events, beginning with sibling rivalry, competing for the bathroom at home, convincing our little league coach to put us on the field - the list goes on and on - competition is life's inevitable challenge. It never ends, and everything we learn and work for is towards but one goal: success. Success, in turn, is achieved and sustained by becoming and staying competitive. That is because there are others who want what we want and need what we need. When those wants and needs become finite and not available to all, we must compete.

How does all this relate to the question on whether competition helps or hurts young people? Again, within reasonable and acceptable limits, young people need to learn the lesson of success through healthy competition. Yes, it hurts to fail, but there is a lesson in failure that goes back to the need to be competitive. A deemphasis of competition, therefore, can be far more harmful to a child, because the child may never develop a pattern of effort that is the first step to competition and the basis of success.

Young people are not stupid. They can see the existence and results of competition. Adolescents, in particular, know that their lives are fraught with opportunities to succeed, and that success is compared with others, who will eventually compete with them in the race to gain entry to a college or university, to find a suitable mate, and to achieve the well-paying job that many others also want. To tell young people otherwise, not only does them a disservice, but it also undermines the credibility of the parenting and educational system that owes them the truth.

Excessive, over-achieving, and pointless competition, on the other hand, can be stupid and harmful. We have all seen the rabid parent acting out at a little league baseball game. Likewise, we have seen the embarrassment on the faces of their children, who, unlike their parents, know how pointless this overarching display of competitiveness can be. Unfortunately, over-the-top competitiveness has the effect of nearly guaranteeing failure, or, at the very least, achieving a short-lived sensation of accomplishment that cannot be sustained, because its means are too debilitating.

Healthy and reasonable competition - kept within the bounds of the young person's aptitudes, interests, and respect for others - helps our young. When they become adults, they must be able to compete in a national and global society where income and quality of life are determined by the extent of each of our contributions. Those who wish to contribute more must be able to compete.

Learn more about this author, Jerry Curtis.
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