5 Reasons to Celebrate When You Lose
The trend in youth sports is to focus on performance, not outcome. But let’s be honest: Winning is fun, and when your child is caught in a losing season, it may be hard for them to find anything to celebrate.
How do you keep up the morale of kids when their team is losing every game? Even though you may not be able to convince them that losing is fun, there are things to celebrate.
Celebrate the Team.
Help your child focus on what the team is doing right and what your child can do better. Your young athlete may find that the best way to help the team is just do their own job or perhaps it’s being an encourager on the team.
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Celebrate personal goals.
Help your child determine what they need to work on and how they will achieve those goals. Show them how to track their personal progress.
Celebrate performance rather than results.
Your child can feel good about hard work and small victories, even if they team loses. You may have to look hard, but there are small victories in every game to celebrate.
Celebrate positivity.
A negative attitude kills team spirit. Negative attitudes are contagious. And as a parent, you have a lot to do with keep the positivity up. You will have to set the tone.
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Celebrate that nothing is wasted.
Losing does not have to be a waste of time. It actually holds the potential for any valuable lessons. Every champion will tell you that they lost or failed many times before they won. And those losses were the building blocks for future success.
When your child is going through a losing season, know that at the very least they are getting prepared for life’s difficulties, for the “long run.” They may not feel like rejoicing, but the lessons learned in the hard seasons will make them a stronger player, and that’s something worth celebrating.
Janis Meredith is a family life coach who wants to help all parents raise champions. You can find out more at rcfamilies.com.
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