Gifted Resource Council
Gifted Resource Council
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Should I Encourage My Child to Compete?
by Dennis O'Brien

When parents are deciding whether to encourage or even allow a gifted child to engage in competitive games, it is important to be clear about the goals of the competition, how it will be structured, the mind-set of the coach and what experiences the child needs in order to become more well-rounded. These variables will determine whether competition will enrich or damage a child’s healthy development.

• Make sure the competition stresses teamwork, not individual prowess. If the event is structured so that helping children learn to work together for a common goal is paramount, it can be a valuable learning experience.

However, if the competition is designed to determine “Who’s the best,” it will probably be harmful. This type of individualistic competition reinforces the notion that being special means somehow being the best at something.

An unhealthy emphasis on being the best may cause gifted children to narrow their focus to venues in which they excel, to avoid participating in many healthy age-appropriate activities, to compete with peers rather than cooperate with them, and to feel badly about themselves if they cannot demonstrate they are “the best.” Children should not be allowed to participate in events organized to produce these outcomes.

On the other hand, competitions which stress teamwork and the fun that everyone has just by participating help children grow in healthy ways.

Gifted Resource Council, for example, stresses the “friendly competition” of its Academic Challenge Cup, structures the event to maximize learning to work as a team and cooperating with others, and does not rank teams which achieve a “level of excellence.” Elements like these make a competitive event healthy for children.

• Evaluate both the coach’s articulated philosophy and actual behavior. Highly competitive, winningis-the-only-thing coaches are as damaging to children engaged in academic competitions as they are to children involved in sports. Children under the direction of dysfunctional coaches become focused on the wrong values (being the best, winning at all costs) and have their self-esteem diminished when they cannot live up to unrealistic expectations set by the coach and internalized by them. These coaches may be using children to play out their own issues involving unfulfilled dreams or feelings of inadequacy.

Healthy coaches emphasize having fun, teamwork and mastering the fundamental skills necessary for competent performance and longterm success. They encourage rather than criticize, explain rather than demand, and involve the whole team, not just the stars. They teach children to lose gracefully and to get their satisfaction from the activities themselves rather than the outcome.

• Assess how competitive your child is. Being emotionally intense and competitive are characteristic of many gifted children. Often these traits need to be tempered.

If your child tends to be competitive, make sure that he or she gets many opportunities to learn about sharing, having fun, participating on a team, and not being the best. It is often valuable to involve children in activities and competitions which have nothing to do with academics. Gifted children sometimes learn more about life and become more well-round and likely to succeed by participating in activities in which they are just average, like sports or the performing arts. Parents should encourage their competitive children to be involved in these types of experiences.

• Examine your own attitudes about competition and what you want for your child.

Parents of gifted kids sometimes model many of the unhealthy traits their children exhibit and unintentionally send children the wrong message.

Unexamined attitudes cause competitive parents to push children too hard to achieve recognition which they missed out on. Unexamined attitudes also allow adults to rationalize the devastating pressure they put on children to excel in a narrow area of their lives.

• Articulate healthy values to your child and reinforce your child’s efforts to become well-rounded, cooperative and a graceful competitior whenever opportunities arise.

Begin by making clear that you are not interested in seeing your child prove that he or she is best at something. Explain that you are interested in seeing your child learn to cooperate with others, to have fun and learn new skills. Emphasize that you value cooperation, good sportsmanship and being persistent when things don’t go well.

• Keep in mind that your child’s participation in competitions can help develop important traits of a wellrounded person provided the competitions are designed to promote healthy values.
For more information regarding Gifted Resource Council, please call the GRC office at 314-962-5920.