My son has discovered something he loves. He loves
it because he’s good at it. He has the potential to be very good at it. It’s
high school speech and debate. Where else can you turn your flair for the
dramatic and your incessant need to argue into a competition? One that wins you
awards and possibly a college scholarship?
There may be no greater joy known on earth than a
parent watching their child succeed. Childhood success is a big deal. It’s an
industry, in fact. Surely the medal-printing business has gone up a hundredfold
since I was a kid and only one person—the MVP—got an award. Now everyone does. The
Navigators’ youth camp used to have the motto: “Something for every kid so
every kid succeeds.” Who wouldn’t want their kid at that camp? No one sends
their child off to camp or puts them on any team hoping they’ll fail. This is
America, land of winners and overachievers. And with so many different options
for kids today—fencing, calf-roping, Irish dancing, online gaming, the oboe—there
really is a place for every kid to experience success. My own daughter won a
salad contest, of all things, and no one was more excited about it than me.
But what about teaching our kids to fail, or at least not win, graciously?
To be second best or dead last at something, and to do it well? To let someone
else succeed, to celebrate that person’s victory (no matter how hard that might
be), and to rise above their feelings and choose to do the right thing? Isn’t
that one of the greatest skills we could teach them? So why do we try so
hard to protect them from failure and disappointment? (I am preaching to myself as much as anyone.)
Our kids need things that build their self-esteem.
But they also need things that build their character, and more often than not,
those are going to be two different things. It is not any fun for me to watch
my daughter struggle socially, but then I remember how good she is at school,
art, music, and sports. I’m thankful that everything’s not easy for her, even
if it’s something as essential as making friends. I’ve seen her grow so much
more through the hard stuff than the easy stuff.
My son can talk circles around people and is
everyone’s first choice when teams are forming for a good trivia game, but he’s
nervous and awkward with a ball in his hands. He knows what it’s like to work
hard and not necessarily get to play, to have to give others the limelight while he
sits on the bench, to endure something that’s clearly not “his thing.” And
I am thankful—not in the hard, uncomfortable moment—but in the big picture of
who he is and who he’s becoming.
Contrary to what we may believe about some people, no one is good at everything. No one gets to win all the time. Failure is inevitable. Let’s teach our kids not to
fear it, and to do it well when it comes. Let’s believe that they’ll be shaped
as much by their disappointments as their victories. We can believe that for ourselves,
too.
