But working hard? That’s a goal. Six years ago after my daughter’s inaugural season every first-grade girl on the roster toddled home with a trophy taller than she was. We parents chuckled mordantly over a culture so obsessed with self-esteem it would lavish hardware on every member of a team still too young to keep score.
Now I think that rewarding the effort for its own sake was the right thing to do. For me, 12 years of parenting has made that the new duh. Because rewarding victory reinforces values that few enlightened parents want to teach, like that winners are worthy in a way that losers are not. Triumphalism may be the American narrative, but that doesn’t mean I want it to become my daughter’s. Ask any mom or dad, and the really good ones will tell you that the really valuable lessons for their children come from losing.
Nothing tells us more viscerally what we need to improve. Nothing else really teaches that winning isn’t everything, or that doing our best is the only actual triumph. Watching my daughter swagger off a field of victory may be satisfying, but it’s a shallower satisfaction than watching her earn poise and equanimity on the field of defeat. From what I’ve seen it’s the losers who learn that basic of mental health: to locate their self-worth outside the realm of competition. If that is true—why are parents so almighty driven to produce winners?
At a recent memorial service, a fellow I know eulogized the man who raised him. “He taught me how to fix a car,” he said. “He taught me how to catch a fish. He taught me how to treat a lady. And he taught me how to lose.” In the inner-city neighborhood where he came up—a culture in which being dissed was grounds for retribution—pride depended on outward displays of superiority. Here, a man taught a boy a lesson that would elevate his prospects for his whole life: how to lose with his pride undiminished.
As I look down the sidelines at the bunched foreheads and pulsing carotid arteries of my fellow soccer parents, I know that that’s the worthier lesson for today’s kids, probably by a mile. I also know in my sinking heart that it’s never gonna play in Peoria. “Why does Coach insist on giving kids experience in every position?” roars an exasperated Wynne. “We’re never going to win that way, and these kids need some wins! To stay interested in playing the game!”
I may not be paying much attention to the score, but the one who needs to win appears to be in no danger of losing interest.
Published: September 2010
Years ago I helped out a friend to fill a public high school girls jv soccer coaching job. I have played my whole life and thought I could do pretty well at this job. She was varsity coach and I was jv. Now being a jv coach you get a WIDE spectrum of skills… some could be varsity (but get little to no playing time) and most were jv and that’s it, no hope of EVER moving up to varsity.
The girls with better skills, I drove them a bit harder, those with less I encouraged them with positive re-enforcement and made them think about they’re options on and off the ball.
The players on jv (I was told) picked the captains and that’s how it was…. well, I got them to compromise, we each pick one. They picked a popular, outgoing girl and I picked a quiet shy freshman. She came up to me after practice one day and quietly said that she couldn’t do it, she was ONLY a freshman and I should pick someone else who played last year. I listened and told her I understood her position but told her the reason I picked her was A) she was an excellent player and B) You lead by example… don’t goof off, listen intently and give 110% 100% of the time. She accepted and understood. The other reason, which I told her parents later was that I wanted her to break out of her shell and take the lead, show the others the way.
She was an EXCELLENT captain, an EXCELLENT player and a GREAT kid! She moved up to varsity the next season and went on to captain the Varsity team her Senior year. I ran into her dad a handful of years later and he told me that she said I was the most influential “teacher” she had throughout high school.
We went 4-3-3 that first year, and ALMOST all the parents would ask me my secret… (they had only won 3 games total the previous 2 years), my answer….. “It’s a game, I wanted them to have fun playing it.”
My son (8 yrs old) plays now (2 teams and a Skills Development Camp) and I see some of those “agro-parents” and I shake my head. They are going to burn their kids out and they don’t even know it. The day my son doesn’t enjoy playing anymore is the day we move onto something else.
Compliments to Seattle Met for exposing the real competitors in today’s youth soccer: the parents (“A Losing Proposition,” September 2010.) As president of a local soccer club, I witnessed great matches of competitiveness, doggedness and tenacity; and that was just on the sidelines! I finally had to quit, but not before implementing mandatory training for coaches on the psychology of coaching youth athletes by UW Professor of Psychology Dr. Frank Smoll. His seminars have helped tens of thousands of coaches increase self-esteem, reduce performance-destroying anxiety, and decrease drop-out rates. Now if we could increase the drop-out rate of overly-competitive sideline behavior, that would be the best goal of all.
I having been coaching Premier Soccer for many years now and I couldn’t agree with you more. I’ll take it a step further and say that at least one or two kids on every one of these teams is having significant damage being done to them in this atmosphere we’ve created. As one of my fellow coaches says to me often, “Seth, we work in the worst industry in the world. We’re this (holding his thumb and pointer finger close together) close to child prostitution….” Damn right….