<p>"Not only are some still waiting as they deal with wait-lists, but there are also many families with a child devastated over not getting a spot at their top college … What can parents do to help their children deal with this rejection?</p>
<p>“As I learned while researching my forthcoming book, Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture, the answer lies in early childhood. The subject of Playing to Win are 95 families with elementary school-age children involved in one of three competitive afterschool activities – chess, dance, and soccer. Parents believe that by participating in these competitive organized activities, their children are developing a certain type of character.” …</p>
<p>I’ve always believed the premise. I do not think it helps kids develop decision making skills, develop emotional skills, resiliency to change amd tactics to cope etc. by shielding them from competition, which can take many forms. Male or female it’s good to have the inner fortitude to “cowboy up” in life and the only way you learn that is to fall off the proverbial horse now and then.</p>
<p>The word no is sadly lacking from the vocabulary of many parents and for this first huge decision in a child’s life, it’s devastating. The “everyone wins” philosophy has crippled the emotional development of kids. Some of the best parenting advice I got when our oldest was a toddler was “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. Practice saying no to your children. We would buy our son a candy bar or something when we were going through a check out line. He came to expect it. We started saying no randomly and soon learned it was a treat, not an expectation. When they didn’t make the “team” or didn’t get the spot in the play or whatever, sure they were sad, but they moved on.</p>
<p>We live in a competitive world. Kids compete for roles in plays, spots on sports teams, college admissions, and down the road jobs/promotions, buying a house, etc. This “everyone wins” attitude is why employers are seeing an uptick in parents calling about job opportunities for their children or worse yet, why their child didn’t get a job. It’s spawned the “helicopter” parent to the extreme. I’ve heard these kids called “teacups” because they are so fragile they will break at the slightest disappointment. How can anyone think this is a good way to raise a child? We know of a couple families where this “never say no” has resulted in kids that are fighting with classmates, etc. because they have no boundaries at home–their kindergartner got suspended from school for 3 days…</p>
<p>There was a thread here that had some legs dealing with this very issue. I meant to respond to that thread with the idea put forth in the article . Pulling from my own life ,with a daughter that studied violin from the age of three, it got serious very quickly. Her first audition was at four. These auditions went on for the next 13 years. There were auditions, competitions, recitals, orchestra performances, solo orchestra performances, incredible wins, and heartbreaking losses. There were hours and hours spent practicing, sometimes one grueling measure at a time. The best lessons and growth were the losses that came after spending all the time practicing and working, only to not come away with a win. Dwelling was not fruitful, you just picked yourself up, learned what you could do better, and tried again. When college results came out our approach was no different. She had spent so many years dealing with this issue that there was no sense of dejection or failure. We celebrated the acceptances and moved on from the “redirection” or rejection as it’s traditionally called. It’s just not the end of the world if it’s something one has experienced their whole life.</p>