Have you ever said this to your kids?: “It’s not a race” or “It’s not a competition”
Wether it’s scarfing food/drink or shoving past one another on the stairs, you will find me there (pulling my hair out) telling my kids “it’s not a race, it’s not a competition.”... or is it?
You see, my step son is a very competitive person. He loves sports, he loves winning and he loves to be the best. (That said, I should mention, he also takes losing very well.)
At one point last year, I thought maybe being on every rep team was getting to his head because he said that if he couldn’t play rep soccer he didn’t want to play. I thought that he was getting a little uppity, but then when we talked about it further, he said that in house league the kids didn’t take the game serious enough for him. It wasn’t that he felt he was better than other kids, it was that he wanted to learn and get better.
So, what’s my point?
Well, competition drives Ethan.
He once failed a recorder test at school... once! After that he practiced every morning and learned every song till he knew it perfectly. In the end, he was the only person in his class to learn every song and be awarded the “black belt” in recorder.
He has a crush (shhhh) and now he takes great pride in beating her on every test at school.
So, maybe next time he is taking 5 years to eat his mash potatoes, I should tell him there is a prize for the first one done.
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