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In today’s stressful world, children are burdened with the bludgeonings of traumatic stress the most. Almost all parents in recent times don’t approve of the word competition due to the fear of pressure the child has to go through while trying to compete. They feel placing the child on the competitive race will put them under tremendous pressure, thus affecting their overall development. Hence, in order to create a protective shield to prevent the kids from frustration, parents these days try and avoid making the child feel the heat of any mental competition.

My only question to these parents is, will only a handful of trophies suffice? Just by worrying about the fear of discontent, should we actually impede the child’s flair for growth? Shouldn’t we encourage our child to reach more and more milestones in not only his educational career but also in sports and other extracurricular activities? I strongly feel a little bit of competition is not harmful; indeed, healthy competitive spirits are good to boost the child’s academic skills. Besides, being competitive will teach the kids the importance of winning and losing, how to deal with glory and how to take failure in a positive stride, and how to become a team player. These skills will aid them in their adolescent years and in their adulthood as well. Competition teaches kids the art of taking turns and developing empathy and persistence. What’s more, children engaging themselves in competition learn the technique of interacting with other children and peers and understand the importance of hard work that leads to success.

The key to encouraging competition is nothing but parents who encourage healthy competition and try creating a constructive competition-conducive environment at home. As being parents, you have the power to encourage your kids to show eagerness in participating in activities and winning or losing gracefully. Parents need to set positive goals for kids to follow suit and to accomplish. Try to be their support system, lend a helping hand, guide them in challenging situations, and highlight the message that participation is more important as long as they are putting in their best efforts and learning from the experience. Just inspiring them to win will not help; parents must sometimes allow the child to fail. Most importantly, parents also must take it well when the child loses.

With the escalation in competition these days, generating a competitive spirit has become the need of the hour. This will help us cope with the pace of competition. These spirits will help you achieve the right goals and reach soaring heights. You develop a never-to-lose attitude. On the other hand, an uncompetitive person will lag, losing all potential opportunities, thus diverting from their goals leading to failures.

Below mentioned are some steps that will aid you in inculcating a competitive spirit in your child.

Planning Process: Starters need to understand the child’s behaviour and decide how to start with your child. You have to do proper planning to build a strong foundation for your child. Please communicate with your child in a friendly manner, understand the child’s weak points, and gain their confidence. Teach them the importance of being competitive and also explain to them the advantages associated with it. Support your child in whatever activity they do. Showing trust in your child will help the kid go a long way. Most importantly, create a friendly environment at home; this will automatically make the child confident and focussed.

Giving freedom        

Allow your child to excel in activities they love the best, be it academics or sports. This will help them give their hundred percent. Being a parent, you must also give the children the freedom to compete in what they like the most.

Know your child’s potential

Children differ in their capabilities. Understand your child’s capacity and encourage them accordingly. This will help boost their potential and will make them resilient. Don’t get things done forcibly.

Children depict some traits and characteristics, making it a cakewalk for parents to understand how competitive their child is. They are as follow —

• The child tends to become determined and diligent in whatever he does. All he wants is to achieve goals in life.
• The child will leave no stones unturned to combat his opponent.
• Let them choose the things themself. Take your kids while shopping at baby shops in cairns or your local store so they can choose the things with their own decision.

The Benefits of being a competitive child are limitless.

• It uplifts your motivation and makes you more challenging.
• If you are competitive, you will be targeted to achieve your goal and successfully accomplish it. The only aim of your child will be to excel in whatever activity he takes up.
• Your child will get the courage to compete with the best in the field, thus enhancing their learning skills. Moreover, your child will learn to play a healthy game.
• The competition will make the child a great team player. Even if the child is not coping up well, the parents must always encourage the child.

Kids learn from their parents and role models. Parents need to set great examples for kids to follow if they want your child to emerge a winner. If you play your role well, it is definitely going to help your child to be competitive and sporty. Guardians, as role models, need to share competitive stories and excerpts with kids to boost their spirits. If you show disinterest, you cannot expect your child to learn and perform better. Support your child throughout; remember, your kid cannot win without your guidance. Your child needs to master the act of competing against himself. Once your child learns this skill, he can compete at any level. Your child needs to challenge himself and compete against his own potential for great results—work towards enhancing your own skills and not to beat somebody in the race.

Your child thinks of nothing but competition. Suppose you rest assured that your child is creating wonders through his competitive urge to win the race. It’s time for you to rethink your child’s overall performance. Always remember, ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ Going by this idiom, parents need to take note that over-competitive traits depicted by the child are unhealthy to a great extent. It goes without saying winning has to be a fun process rather than a stressful affair. Try and create fun activities in your child’s curriculum for them to learn and perform better. It’s time for parents to show concern when the child stops having fun in order to emerge a winner. Find out if your child is enjoying his studies or sports or is doing it just for the heck of winning. Find out if they are too pressurized. Never eliminate fun from their lives in order to make them compete.

Parents should make the inclusion of fun elements and activities to make the moment light for stressed kids. These act as major stress busters, thus helping to prevent your child from being over competitive.

One can teach healthy competition to kids by incorporating fun activities like playing games in their routine. Spending family time and playing games is one of the good exercises and approaches in assisting children in learning to compete. These could be simple games like Chess, Ludo or board games like Monopoly. Game playing teaches the kids to play a reasonably fair competition, which emphasizes and deals with tackling the joys associated with winning and helps to deal with the losing dilemmas. The goal must be to learn to balance between winning and losing. Any time winning is Prefixed before the game has begun, it invalidates the teaching of competition. Watching others play might tempt them to join in. So, not to pay a lot of attention to children’s fears of trying, but let them join in when they’re ready and feel like it. Family fun and laughter while playing will play a key role in motivating children to learn, work, and accomplish. The games could be indoor as well as outdoors also sports could be used to encourage achievement and healthy competition. Encourage the kids to frame rules and write the rules on the board and help kids expand their ideas by considering winning, losing, coach respect, practice, teamwork, etc., specifically applied to the chosen sports, by asking the students to describe how each of the rules selected can be used to sportsmanship or school achievement.

Depending upon their age group, fun activities can be recommended for kids—-

Umbrella painting – Indulge your kids to get creative with some umbrella painting. This will help them recognize colors and will help enhance their paint skills.

Inculcating Board games habit – Get all your family members together to play board games. Your child will automatically develop an interest in the game and will want to compete and win. Encourage your kid to play all levels, win the battle and proclaim self as an undisputed warrior.

Lego- Playing Lego will boost your child’s creative performance. Allow your child to use his own imagination to create a masterpiece out of the blocks.

Scavenger Hunt – The most effective technique to inculcate competitive spirit is to allow them to play scavenger hunt. Hide objects and challenge kids to hunt them.

Crafts – Let your child come out with a creative idea. They can also do DIY crafts. Let them do their own ideation.

AUTHOR’S BIO:

I am Lana Murpy, a post-graduate in humanities and communications, and an inquisitive person who loves writing. My forte is digital marketing and everything that has to do with phones and screens. I’m working for Tiny Twig . I am someone who believes that one person can make a change and that’s precisely why I took up writing which is the best tool to communicate these days. I have a decade of experience in writing and marketing.