Forefront Families

When you can win or lose graciously you know you have reached a significant level of maturity.  But what does it take to get to that point?  Let’s consider how healthy attitudes to winning are developed and influenced.
When a baby manages get a spoon of food into its own mouth, instead of all over the floor, parents cheer.  When a toddler takes his first steps, or learns to use the potty, there is more praise and excitement.  A child soon learns what pleases others and what produces a negative response. Kids are geared to please, and when they are praised for a job well done they gain confidence to try bigger and more challenging things.  When parents have high expectations of their kids they will rise to the occasion.  Praise means that parents are recognizing, acknowledging, and encouraging their child’s potential.  Achievement is also enhanced when kids see their parents achieving goals.  They watch and learn what it takes to produce winning results, and they see the satisfaction their parents experience when they experience success.  Kids also observe and usually copy their parents’ attitude towards achievement.

So when does an attitude towards success become negative?  It will happen when any of the above criteria are missing in the training equation.  If a parent only praises a child at the point of actually reaching a goal (e.g. riding a bike without falling off), then the child may get the impression that the parent does not value the effort, only the end result.  This may be translated as conditional worth.  If the motivation for winning is only to get the approval of a parent, then their attitude to that success will be self-serving.

When I think of a gracious winner, I think of one who accepts their success with humility, a person who immediately acknowledges those who helped him get to his level of expertise, and who gives recognition to the other ‘competitors’.  This level of maturity is greatly influenced by parental training and role modeling.  Children, from an early age, need to be shown how to manage their success in a gracious manner.  Here are some suggestions on how to assist your children to be successful without attitude.  Be successful yourself.  Your attitude needs to start with, “I can do anything I really set my mind to.”  Create a plan to achieve your goals, but within those plans ensure that you acknowledge the help of others to get there. Train your children to do the same thing.  Encourage them to dream big, make a plan, and work at it until they reach their goal.  Show them how to respond appropriately to praise.  When our daughter became a successful singer,we told her literally what to say when someone praised her. She could say, “Thank you for telling me you like my style of music”, or, “I am glad you liked that song.  I love it, too.”  When we respond positively and graciously, then the person offering the praise will become more confident to tell someone else they are appreciated.  It is fine to enjoy the praise others give.  It is the response you make that determines attitude.  Many people do not know how to accept praise graciously.  It is very tempting to say, “I am glad you thought it sounded good, but I didn’t really hit those high notes very well.”  This can be seen as false humility and this is not being gracious. We need to keep our high achievers grounded.  We need to keep them balanced and not just focus on one skill.  We can do this by training them on how to praise and acknowledge one another as family members.  I was thrilled the other day when my daughter told me, completely out of the blue, how proud she was of some of my activities.  It made my day!  Graciousness is shown when we praise others instead of focusing solely on just our own success stories.