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Win or Lose
Playing With Grace
By Barbara Unell and Jerry L. Wyckoff
Praising children for making the winning goal, making an A grade or being beautiful or handsome teaches them that the goal is more important than the effort made to reach the goal. Restrict your praise to the effort that leads to success so that they learn to work hard and give their best effort regardless of outcome.
Encourage Your Child's Empathy.
Helping children use their natural empathy to understand others and how others feel will help them cope with their own losses. For example, they cope better if they've tried to understand how the other team feels when they lose. In 20 Teachable Virtues (Perigee, 1995), we show ways for parents to teach empathy, as well as other lessons of character, to their children. 
Teach Children to Help Others.
Children who become helpers learn to give of themselves rather than expect others to give to them. Their goal is to help others "win" or reach their goals, instead of thinking about whether they always get what they want. Show Children How to Earn Privileges and Things They Want.
Children who don't get the things they want think of themselves as losers. Those children who earn things they want learn to delay gratification, to set long-term goals and to consider the effort it takes to reach goals. In Discipline Without Shouting or Spanking, we show parents how to help their young children set goals and work to reach their goals instead of tantruming, whining and demanding to get what they want. Focus on the Future Rather Than the Past.
Teaching children that what's past is past and in the future lies hope to do better eases the disappointment of loss and encourages an optimistic outlook on life. Pages: 1 2