Winning Versus Losing

I attended a forum organized by IMH on Mental Health and Resilience on Young Children and Adolescents. When I thought that the speakers were insightful in their presentations, the sharing posted by one of the participants during Q&A was even more awakening.






This lady has five children and she shared how her second son has always been competitive since young, trying his best to outdo his elder brother. Once at a national-level canoe competition, when his team did not come in first, he sank into depression and failures alike brought about the same resentment and self-doubt throughout his adult life. He has only learnt to win and losing is not part of his vocabulary. The lady ended her sharing by asking, “We only teach our children how to win, have we taught them how to lose?”





I guess it is not difficult to resonate with the feeling that if so much hard work has been invested in the task at hand, there should be no reason to fail; if failure ever happens, it is sheer unfairness and the fault of someone else, at times maybe I-am-a-loser. The case of secondary school rugby match turned into ugly brawl in April this year is a fairly good illustration. What could have landed these young children and adolescents in negative behaviour towards losing?





This question lingered in my mind for the longest time as I reflect the way how our educational system steam lines the best, how our competitive economy and inclusive society fuel parents’ worries and hence high expectations of their children, hoping that they can have a brighter future. At which point of the environment have we allowed our children to fail?





How many times as parents, when our children want to experiment how to load the disc into the player, we so eagerly show them how? Do we as role models to our children have the resilience and open mindset to deal with failure? Do we snarl at the wrong button pressed or do we let our children experience the consequence of their actions and hence encourage self-directed learning, a skill that is very much valued in the 21st century? It is not only important buy essential to provide a safe environment whether in school or at home for kids to learn how to lose; that failures provide the best learning experiences that lead to eventual success.





Thomas Edison once said, “Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”; in other words, if we choose not to give up, we can never fail!




Article Source : Siew Peng