Last year I volunteered at my son Eli’s third-grade holiday class party. The mood was festive and fun, the kids were excited and the treats were abundant. It was everything a holiday party should be.
I was assigned to the BINGO station. Unfortunately, one of the more aggressive moms got there first and staked out her spot so that she could be the caller. I was really OK with that, even if I had been a professional radio talk show host for a good part of my adult life. Not to worry, I could happily play the supportive role of BINGO card verifier at the end of the game. After a long 10 minutes, one of the children happily shouted, “BINGO!” I launched into action and checked her card with the efficiency of an Indy 500 pit crew. It was an authentic BINGO, and I advised the kids to clear their cards for the next game.
“What are you doing?” My mom-partner barked at me. “I’m getting the kids ready for another game.” I tried not to make this sound patronizingly obvious. “Don’t clear your cards!” she bellowed. The children froze. “We are playing for second place.” “Oh,” I stammered, “I’m so sorry. I just didn’t realize we were doing that. Won’t happen again.” I saluted, hoping the gesture might bring a bit of levity to the awkwardness between us. “Other mom” just ignored me and began calling out numbers. The game went on until the next child yelled, “BINGO!” I affirmed the win with a silent nod but didn’t dare say a word. Other mom nodded back, pulled out another BINGO ball and announced “N33.”
“Oh,” I asked with surprise, “Are we playing for third place?”
But other mom just continued to call numbers as if she hadn’t even heard my question. As one who’s not used to being ignored, I simply repeated my question at a much higher decibel. “Are we playing for third place now?” Other mom, clearly annoyed, looked at me as if I were a visitor from the planet Idiot. “We’re playing until every child gets BINGO,” she declared. “Everyone has to win.”
At that point, I realized how truly out of step my husband and I were with the rest of the child-rearing universe. We believe wholeheartedly in winners and losers. We believe that losing teaches valuable lessons, not the least of which is that being a winner is not automatic and the harder you work, the better your chance of becoming the victor.
I filed away this story until the other day when I was perusing the New York Times and came across an op-ed piece by Ashley Merryman, co-author with Po Bronson of NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children. Merryman has spent years analyzing the effects of praise and rewards on children. Her research clearly shows that rewards and approval are powerful motivators for kids. But constant recognition does not inspire success. In fact, it can actually cause kids to underachieve.
While being a positive and praising parent is something we all aim for, the science seems to prove that kids with unremitting positive reinforcement often collapse at the first challenging experience. Then, feeling demoralized by defeat, these kids would rather cheat to win so that they won’t have to repeat the miserable experience of failure.
In Merryman’s op-ed piece she notes several recent studies on the increase in narcissism and entitlement among college students. She warns, “When living rooms are filled with participation trophies, it’s part of a larger cultural message: to succeed, you just have to show up.” Those kids who’ve spent childhoods receiving endless awards do only the minimal amount of work that’s required in college, and they don’t see the need to do it well. She postulates that once these grads hit the workforce, they continue to believe that attendance alone is all it takes to get a promotion.
How can our kids learn to rebound from loss or failure if we continue to insist that every breath they take is a staggering achievement? The reality in life is that we fail more than we succeed. I try hard to let my kids experience failure. It’s not easy, and it hurts, both them and me. But without failure, there really isn’t success. I talked with Eli about the BINGO fiasco. He thought everyone winning was ridiculous. That made me feel a little better. Then I shared a favorite Michael Jordan quote with him: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Eli nodded. “I get it mom,” he smiled. Then he shared his favorite Wayne Gretzky quote with me: “But remember, ‘You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.’
Social Action Grants for Teens
Jewish teens involved in social action projects are eligible for $36,000 awards from The Helen Diller Family Foundation. Nominations are due Jan. 5, 2014, for the 2014 Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards.
“Today’s teens are tomorrow’s leaders. It is our hope that this award will recognize some outstanding young people who are already helping to repair the world,” says Helen Diller, president of the sponsoring foundation. U.S. residents aged 13 to 19 years old at the time of nomination who self-identify as Jewish are eligible.
To nominate: Complete the simple online form at dillerteenawards.org.
Information: dillerteenawards@sfjcf.org or 415-512-6432
Debra Rich Gettleman is a mother and blogger based in the Phoenix area. For more of her work, visit unmotherlyinsights.com.
