Competitive sport is important. But let's keep a sense of proportion, please...

My sons have been playing in a competitive football league for the last couple of months, Boy#2 for the first time in his life like most of  his team-mates.

The nearly-over season hasn't been a complete washout - but neither has it been what you might called an unqualified success.  If you count 'success' as actually winning games, that is...  However it has been fun, and not just for the Boys, as it gives parents the chance to catch up on the sidelines.

There's no such thing as a 'drop your kids at the match and pop off to do a couple of errands' opportunity here in Moscow, mainly because even if you were able to tear yourself from your little cherub's side, the ground is so far from home - and the traffic so unpredictable - that if you tried to go anywhere else during the hour the children have on-pitch, you would actually end up collecting them as darkness fell at least 5 hours later.  Not really worth it if even if you do have a hard-core caffeine habit and are desperate for a coffee in Starbucks half a mile down the road; the chances are too great your caffeine hit will result in being caught in the mother of all jams on your way back.

So, the parents usually stay and shout their support to the 6 and 7 year olds buzzing around the pitch like a swarm of bees, and it has to be said that some nationalities of parent are more vociferous and aggressive in this than others.  Yes, American and French expat dads - I'm looking at you.  Listening to many of them, you would think that their children were trying out for some top-flight football academy rather than simply enjoying a run around on a Saturday morning.  Having said that, I'm afraid that even we more retiring nations can give our noisier peers a run for their money on occasion.  I give you Exhibit A.

Yesterday morning, I was standing with a couple of other mothers from the British Isles watching our sons losing their match.  Again.  We were of course trying to lift their spirits, shouting support (I do recall at one moment suggesting to Boy#2 that he face the ball rather than chatting to a fellow player - that's what we're working with in the Potski Family, I'm afraid).  The son of one of the women I was standing with was in goal, so we had stationed ourselves near the posts to gee him up - which seemed like an excellent idea at the time.

Until the moment when the ball careered across the pitch towards the little boy - and the goal.  At which point, his excited mum, somewhat carried away by the moment and desperate to save him from the ignominy of letting in another goal, ran onto the pitch and - well, sort of helped the ball on it's way, off the pitch.  By, um, kicking it.

Ah.

To say she was embarrassed when she realised what she'd done is an understatement.  To say that the other mum & I nearly wet ourselves laughing is another.  But you know what topped off the whole experience for me? The look on the faces of the group of dads supporting the opposing team when they realised that they couldn't actually make that much of a fuss about it without appearing to be complete plonkers; not only were their team already winning handsomely but we were, after all, watching a game for 6 and 7 year old children...

Teaching your child to lose

We all want our child to be one of life's winners, don't we?

We encourage them to do their best, try harder, put just that little bit more effort in. Not for ourselves, oh no, of course not - perish the thought. I mean, obviously it's nice to watch little Amy / Jimmy standing on the podium to receieve their medal, but it's all about them, isn't it? Isn't it? Yes, of course it is (and for the times it isn't, well, I'll write another post), and we push our children for their own sakes, because we want them to get the best that they can out of their lives. The best results. The best opportunities. Even - ultimately - the best jobs.

Here's the thing though, and it's an old chestnut but for all that, it's true; for every winner, there has to be a loser. In fact if we're honest about it, there have to be a whole host of losers. And unless they are a prodigy of some kind, at some point in time, your child - statistically - will be one of them.

This issue is top of mind for me because at the weekend Boy #2 had his birthday party. We try to keep things as simple as possible for these events; no entertainer, just us, some other parents willing to get down and dirty with the kids (or in this case, cold and icy for the snowman building competition), hot chocolate, pizza and birthday cake. Oh, and party games.

These party games were pretty simple; musical chairs, musical statues, pass the parcel and of course, that stalwart 'calm everybody down' standby: Sleeping Lions. (I tried to call it 'dead lions', which is how I remember it from my childhood but apparently that's not on for today's little eco-warriers). These party games were fun - and they were also revealing. Whilst many of the children at the party were perfectly able to keep the whole thing in perspective and simply enjoy the fun, some previously sunny little souls, when told that they hadn't won the game, promptly burst into tears and were inconsolable.

And yes, I know that they're 6. And that they will learn. But the experience highlighted to me that at a time when the importance of competitive sport is being down-played in many schools (football matches with no recorded score, anybody?), we may be failing to equip our children with the very important life-skill of how to lose gracefully. Because surely, if we avoid all the situations where our child is potentially a non-winner, a - say it - loser, we are not helping them in the long run.

I'm not for one moment suggesting that we all become Competitive Dad (see the clip below if you have no idea what I'm talking about) and take every opportunity to get one up on our kids in the name of educating them in Real Life. I do think though that as parents we should spend some time helping our children understand that whilst winning can be important, it isn't everything.

Children need to understand that losing a game does not mean becoming a Loser in life. Once the scrabble and ludo are put away, once the Wii has powered down, and once the mud has dried on their trainers, it's over, finished. It's one moment in time. Now, on to the next adventure.

(And then, maybe, children's birthday parties will be a little less of a minefield...)

What do you think?