Back in 1986, an American minister named Robert Fulghum wrote a best-selling self-help book called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. The book was filled with entertaining essays about sharing, cleaning up, and inspiring tales of Mother Teresa. Fulghum busted some myths—for example, that merely possessing a Y chromosome gives a man the knowledge to connect jumper cables. I thought back to my kindergarten class at the Shark River Hills Elementary School, a pretty scary name for a school. What I remember most is a kid named Chuck hitting me on the head with a wooden truck.
Around the time Fulghum enjoyed his breakthrough literary hit, schools around the country began to focus on self-esteem and emotional intelligence. Who cared whether a kid could do algebra if he felt bad about himself? Who cared if a kid understood how electricity flowed through wires if he did not have a knack for the feelings of others? What was to blame for our children’s failed egos and blustery dispositions? According to many experts, it was competition. The solution: call in an exorcist and free the schools of competitive demons. No more spelling bees. No more class ranks. No more bright red slashes on test papers marking wrong answers. No more keeping score at soccer. A school in Massachusetts encouraged jumping rope—but banned the rope. Not all schools adopted all of these techniques, of course, but the trend was real.
My children are being educated in this new world. When my middle daughter was in kindergarten and playing on a soccer team, my mother made the terrible mistake of asking her the score. She replied, “Grandma, we don’t keep score. But if we did, we’re winning three to two.” You really can’t fool the kids, but you can waste their time and frustrate them.
Now, I’m not an angry, interfering Little League parent who screams at the coaches or at my child. My priority for sport is fun. But there’s a downside to the noncompetitive, pro self-esteem environment. First of all, it doesn’t make kids happier when they know their efforts are unscored, as if the game didn’t matter. Second, and more important, it robs them of the natural pleasures that come from excelling and improving.
Here are some tips for teaching your kids about healthy competition. The first two tips focus on the upside of losing. You can’t get kids excited about competing if their teeth are chattering in fear.
