Growing up in Israel, I had the opportunity to be involved in athletic classes from an early age – ballet, gymnastics, judo and swimming.   Even today, there are not as many competitive leagues for kids and teens as there are here in the US. When I was younger, I would take every opportunity to participate in regional athletic competitions for my school.  I mostly joined in because I loved it, but there was no real expectation that I win.  When I did,  everyone was happy, and  if I did not, that was okay as well.

Here in the US, the reality is very different.  From a very young age our kids are involved in various competitive activities. In each activity there are competitions and trophies.  It is enough to watch a local soccer game, or the more extreme “Dance Moms,”  to see the intensity on the field and the high expectation of our girls to excel. The goal is #1 – nothing less. 

I had the opportunity to watch a girls’ basketball game recently. I loved feeling the excitement in the gym, and the outpouring of support and encouragement for the girls playing.  Watching the game was a lot of fun, but as in every game, there is a winner and a loser. When the game was over, the winning team was overjoyed. The cheering, hugging and excitement was electrifying. But the girl I was there to watch was on the losing team. And on our side of the court, a very different picture was emerging.

I was not concerned that the girls whose team lost were disappointed. That is an appropriate response to losing – hey, we all want to win. What worried me was the interpretation the girls gave to losing and what this meant about them.

The narrative on the losing team was not as I would have hoped – “Today they were better so they won, and hopefully next time we will play better.”  Instead, it was “We lost therefore we are…………..a failure, not good enough (in many areas, not only basketball)……… a disappointment to ourselves and everyone who supports us……… we are worth nothing if we don’t win……..if we are not #1 we might as well be the lowest scorers – it is just as bad.”  These are just a few of the responses I heard that afternoon.

We often think of ribbons and trophies in the context of building self-esteem. Letting our daughter know she won, she is the best, she is amazing. It makes her feel good.  When I ask parents why they respond like this to prizes won, the answer I often get is “Winning is good for their self-esteem. If I tell my daughter all the time how perfect she is, how amazing and the best, she will have a strong sense of self-esteem.

There is one key problem with this approach. It is the definition of self-esteem. Self-esteem is not about drawing your value from external sources, whether they are your parents, your basketball coach or, more importantly at this age, your friends. Self-esteem is created by building a solid foundation that allows you to resource your power from within! It is essential to create a foundation that assures you that no matter what is going on in your external reality, whether you win or lose, or whether your friends are being mean or nice to you today, this has absolutely NOTHING to do with your value.

We can’t always be #1 and we are certainly not the best at everything – that is both unrealistic and impossible. I am hoping that we can help our daughters shift the internal and external conversation, recognizing that the goal is always to do only one thing – her best.  I am hopeful that we can support her in being the kindest, the strongest, the most thoughtful and the most successful she can be.   Success is not when you always win, it is when you always enjoy the journey!

How does your daughter respond to failure? What step can you take this week to help shift the conversation in your daughter’s life?

Comment below and let me know if you agree or not. What is going on in your daughter’s world? And how does she view failure and success?

Much Love and Support

Tova