It’s Ok to Lose
February 3, 2010
I was playing Monopoly Junior with my 5 year old and my wife and he started crying when he lost. He doesn’t like losing and thinks he should win all the time. I had a talk with him about how losing in life is a good thing for a couple of reasons. Losing is a necessary counterpart to winning because you cannot truly appreciate the joy of winning unless you have felt the grief of losing. Also, perpetual winning inevitably results in complacency. You take things for granted when you forget what losing feels like. Losing reminds you that winning feels much better and drives you to get back there. Obviously, I simplified these thoughts down a little bit when talking to my 5 year old but you get the idea.
When I taught high school math for five years, the idea of winning and losing constantly came up. I realized during those years that we are creating a society where losing is not allowed and everyone is a winner. I had students who had failed the previous 2 or 3 years of math but kept advancing to the next level. They were not held accountable for their inability to perform at a passing level because of “social promotion”. When they got to high school, they had no comprehension of the necessity to perform at a certain level to pass the class. They blamed me when they did poorly on tests even though they did no homework, did not participate in class, and did not study for the test. They were not used to “losing” because they were always treated as “winners” simply because they tried their best. They were never driven to work harder because they had never known “losing” before.
We even do this with our sports leagues for kids. When I was a kid, we kept score and had winners and losers for T-Ball, soccer, etc. As my boys are getting old enough to start playing in leagues, nobody keeps score. In soccer, nobody keeps track of how many goals are scored. Both teams are “winners”. In T-Ball, everybody hits, no runs are counted, and nobody ever gets out. Every game ends in a tie.
Competition is a key part of life. It makes us stronger, it causes us to work harder, it drives us to get better. It concerns me when I look at our society and see an entire generation growing up that thinks competition is a bad thing and that everyone can and should be a winner as long as they try their best. That was part of the reason I left teaching.
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It seems that the school/district lost a good person.
I know about the youth sports too. When I was a kid I played on a baseball league. You had to tryout and not every kid was chosen to play. When my son played soccer, they did keep score but they did have tie games. Every team got the same trophy at the end of the season.
I just installed the theme. Thank for making it free.