The Art of Losing

by Jen Solomon

You will fail.

You will fail hundreds of times in your life.

And some of those failures will be devastatingly spectacular.

Losing is part of the human experience. We simply can’t win ‘em all.

Parents love to see their children’s happy little faces, and they feel great anxiety when they’re unhappy. But children that learn that losing is part of life, become resilient adults. When parents bulldoze all obstacles out of their children’s way, they do them a disservice.

If a child doesn’t win a medal at sports’ day and gets really upset about it and the parent tries to argue their way to obtaining one, children will learn to think that they can regulate their emotions by controlling outcomes. That they can force a win. You can’t control the world around you. We need to teach our children it’s ok to lose. And we have to help them learn to manage their feelings about it. So practice running and get faster, and work hard so that you can try to achieve that medal next year. Trying to argue to get one is not how the world works. Hard work and playing fair is how you can best try to earn that medal.

But you still might fail, because hard work doesn’t always equal success.

Life lessons like this will be invaluable when you’re a grown up. I know it feels difficult now. You have to practice failing as a child, so it doesn’t come as a complete surprise as an adult, when your parents aren’t there anymore telling you that you’re special and different and somehow deserve everything, even if you didn’t earn it. We don’t want our children growing up thinking that the rules don’t apply to them. Of course if you genuinely think there’s been an error or miscalculation, you should point it out. Because that is still absolutely the spirit of fairness. But it’s the exception, rather than the rule.

If your child is disappointed by a C grade for their English paper, the solution is not for the parents to argue with the teacher and try to convince them to change the grade. The solution is to take responsibility for improving your writing. We can’t hand out A grades to everyone, or they lose all value. You have to deserve it. You must earn it.

Buying a new library wing to get your child a university place maybe something you’re in a position to do, but you are teaching your child that you can force your wins in life with money and power, rather than earning your place with good old fashioned hard work.

The value of your win is completely lost if you haven’t earned it fairly. Parents play games with their children and lose on purpose because they love to see the smile of a win on their child’s face. But what happens when your child gets so used to undeserved winning (or cheating that you’ve turned a blind eye to) and they play the game against another child and lose? They have a meltdown and a temper tantrum and insist everything was unfair. You’re not helping your children when you don’t just play normally with them. We’re creating children that feel entitled to win everything, regardless of whether they earned it, and they become adults with that mindset.

The only thing worse than an entitled child, is an entitled adult.

We all have ‘that’ family member that we don’t want to play Monopoly with because they cheat or get into a bad mood when they lose. We call them ‘competitive’, but really they are just a bad loser, and are not fun to play with. Adults that want to win at all costs so badly that they will cheat and/or have a tantrum if they lose, are adults that never learnt that losing gracefully is an art. That shaking your competitor’s hand when they beat you fair and square and telling them ‘good game, well played’ is how you become a classy individual.

Good sportsmanship is important. When you learn it, it crosses into all aspects of how you present yourself in life, like sincerely congratulating your colleague for their promotion.

That parent at the football match, shouting at the referee declaring everything is unfair is not ‘passionate’ about their child’s enjoyment of the sport. They’re just a bad loser. And once again wants to resort to trying to control everything to get the desired outcome. Ironically undermining the very nature of the fairness they say they are seeking.

Bad losers also tend to be bad winners. They gloat and fixate on the win, rather than letting the win speak for itself and forget to have empathy for their competitor, by shaking their hand and telling them how well they performed. They’re so consumed by the win, they forget good sportsmanship.

Do you want to win? Then be better. This is how athletes think, and it is a marvel to watch them in training, working hard with discipline and dedication.

Losing is part of life.

Let your child lose and don’t try to ‘fix’ it, so that they can become an adult imbued with resilience, strength of character, tenacity, and become someone that always maintains the spirit of fairness.

The art of losing with dignity is a life skill.

The art of losing builds the skills for winning.

Written by Jennifer Solomon

All opinions my own, and not representative of the SEND community, it is my observation of mainstream children and parenting.

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