“I get it now; I didn’t get it then. That life is about losing and about doing it as gracefully as possible…and enjoying everything in between.”
~Mia Farrow
You know as a parent you only hope that each talk that you have with your child makes an impression, but more importantly that it makes the right impression. You hope that you communicate the right thing (what you intended) and not that they only hear the opposite of what you are saying. I guess most of us are all winging it in the parent department because the fact is that the rules keep changing with every generation that comes along.
Last night I found myself having to explain to my daughter (probably for the hundredth time), after she started pouting because I beat her in a video game, that it is important to know how to be a graceful loser. Her first response was ‘huh?’ and she clearly didn’t understand what that meant (she’s 8 so that’s understandable). She said that she always wins that game and didn’t want her record as champion to be erased. I reminded her that she’s not going to always be able to win and when she does lose at something she needs to learn how to do it gracefully and without pouting about it. She claimed that she understood but I could tell by the pout that she failed to remove from her face that she didn’t.
So without taking away her determination to always be a winner (because she’s going to need that in this world) I sat her down and tried to impress upon her that we all want to be winners at everything that we do but it is impossible to win at everything, all of the time. I reinforced that while it is important that she always tries to do her best at every single thing that she does, that she shouldn’t get discouraged, or throw a tantrum because she doesn’t win.
Now I don’t know how good a job I did at making her understand the art of losing gracefully (seeing as though I’m still trying to master that myself) but I can only hope that I didn’t suppress her determination to succeed. Lord only knows that my mother never talked to me about the art of losing or winning with grace so I am really just praying that I’m saying all of the right things. Until tomorrow…What lessons are you winging it on when it comes to your children?
Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
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