The biggest cry of the anti-LTPD army is that young children need to learn how to lose. (for the record, LTPD is not about removing scores ... but that's another story).
For the record, in my humble opinion, when it's done at an adult level, kids don't need to learn how to lose. I didn't always think it was very wrong, but I did always feel it was wrong. Now, as I reflect back on mistakes and successes and learn from that, my position is more defined. Watching my nephews come through their respective systems now, I feel even stronger about age appropriate programming. (writer's note, I write this article drawing on YEARS of making mistakes.)
First and foremost, kids don't need adults to teach them how to win or lose. They live and learn it everyday at the schoolyard and playground and I think it's great. Most playground games have a winner and loser. Some kid has to get picked last for teams. Not everybody gets to be Sidney Crosby in street hockey. Somebody dumps their bike quicker and gets to the Slurpee
machine first. In front of the girls, a boy discovers that his cannonball creates a smaller splash than his friend's. These are everyday occurrences that our kids deal with. Sometimes a kid is too slow to "call it". They compete, win and lose all day, everyday.
They are experiencing winning and losing, but on their own terms at a level that is appropriate for their age. Kids instantly and independently adjust their teams, game area and rules to improve their game and make it more fun. An adult's version of winning and losing is on a different level, an adult level. Adult standards put everybody on a level playing field measured by the same yard stick. Children 12 and under cannot possibly be held to that standard since they are all growing and developing at different rates. And because of that, some get left behind. Our most precious resource being labelled, classified and directed into various streams at 10, 11 or 12 years old. This mindset hurts both the early and late bloomers .
I am not talking about not letting them play games, but having them do so in an environment that is age appropriate. Let them display the effort and passion necessary to win their game. "Pulling" a young goalie or shortening your bench in a close game is not age appropriate for a 9 year old. Adults will justify their decisions with terms like "teamwork", "team goals", "taking one for the team", "important game". One of my son's coaches said they will "make history" by winning a series. History? All three of my sons have been benched, pulled, cut, etc. How does sitting on the bench promote teamwork? Your child should ask their coach that. :)
"Age appropriate" is a very important term being used in sports circles these days. It is very descriptive and even implies a call to action for people who designing program. If schooling was not delivered in an age appropriate manner, society would be at the school board's office with torches and pitchforks, but attitudes seem to change towards sports.
This conversation between Father O'Malley and Sister Mary Benedict was WAY ahead of its time and is one of my favourite movie conversations. (Some mobile browsers may not see this embedded video, sorry. Here is the direct link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MctafuXLho )
Let's consider some ideas:
- Up to age 12, children can learn, grow and develop many of their faculties at alarming rates.
- Mentally, they can mostly be comfortable or scared (my experiences confirm this for me). The adult version of motivation doesn't exist yet. They are mostly motivated by their own success and enjoyment.
- A child's agility-balance-control is molding itself into the athlete the child is going to become.
- Children are not miniature versions of adults. They are children.
- Socially, they are learning to navigate their way through their groups and very sensitive.
- They are at the stage where one negative sentence or experience can undo a year of progress.
What am I getting at here, you ask? Imposing adult values and an adult environment on young children can impede their overall development at a time when it can affect them the most. I guess that's what I am getting at. I wrote this article back in 2011 and it still gets good traffic.
"An adult's version of winning and losing is on a different level, an adult level."If you have a person who is at their most impressionable, would you not want them in a frame of mind and create an environment to absorb as much as possible and be willing to try anything. Would you not want them to be confident enough to innovate at a level that excites them and allows them to apply what they've learned?
If you're focused on winning and success, it's smarter to prepare the child to win by developing the most complete person possible during the years when it's most effective. Then, when the time is right and when winning matters, your child is prepared to compete. And win.
When it's appropriate and when they're ready, young people will learn about the organized world's version of winning and losing and how to deal with it.
There's no rush. Let them play. Let them win and lose, but at their level. Go to your tournaments and festivals and enjoy yourself, but let the kids play.
P.S. One very good example of children competing in an adult environment is when the school speech you wrote for your child lost to the speech somebody else wrote for their child :)