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I don't agree with telling children the old line, "It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." Martial arts is about personal development and should be taught as such. This leads me to the question, how can you do your best if you don't plan to win?
Before we continue, I'd like to state that one of the main reasons I don't like this saying is because it gives children a false sense of success. In life, winning is equally as important as how you perform. If your goal is to provide for your family, doing your best simply isn't enough, you have to succeed. If your goal is to save for retirement, doing your best isn't going to cut it, succeeding is your only option. Doing your best and failing is still failing, no success and no progress; this is what children should be taught.
I also believe that this particular saying has been used solely for the purpose of consoling children. In this instance, it is nothing more than a cop-out, a way for a coach or parent to make a child feeeeeel better rather than using the opportunity to educate them and assist in their personal and mental development. Telling children, "it doesn't matter that you lost," is robbing them of the truth. If it doesn't matter, then why are they playing in the first place? Why the hard work? Why the 110% effort? Why should they listen to anything you say if the result of their performance doesn't really matter? Why is winning rewarded and losing forgotten when losing always creates the best atmosphere for learning?
Instead of teaching them to go back to the drawing board we're teaching them to forget and simply feel good about the fact that they tried. So what should we tell children instead? For starters, we should be real. Here are the three statements that I teach and coach by; I don't use these exact quotes and you probably shouldn't either because it takes having discussions with children to help them understand and learn. You can't just throw a quote or two at them and then walk away, they are still children and they still need support.
1. "Winners are losers that never quit."
2. "It doesn't matter to ME whether you won or lost, but it should matter to you, I'm just glad you tried and did your best."
3. "Let's talk about why you didn't win and what you can improve to help you win next time."
The discussion starts with the largest lesson about personal development, the fact that winners don't just happen, they are built. Winners are created from losers who learned from their mistakes and used the knowledge of why they lost to gain strength and eventually overcome. Winners are never created from people who don't care about the outcome, winners are always created from people who specifically care about the outcome. Of course, I am assuming it is your goal to win. If not, I ask again, why are you playing?
The discussion broadens by reassuring the child that YOU are not affected by how they perform and that you still support them no matter what. This gives the child strength to understand they lost, that their goal is to win, and how to win based on learning from their loss. They need your support to do this. You can also help the child understand, if this was their first attempt at something, that trying was the most important part. Losing should never be given a negative connotation. You will win and lose throughout life and losing should be seen as a sign that improvement is needed and only people who have the strength to accept losing and possess the ability to analyze it will overcome.
The discussion comes to a close by teaching the child how to analyze a loss and work to improve. This is the most important part. If a child has made progress by understanding that losing isn't negative and believing that they have your support, they are still not reaching their potential if they don't learn how to win.
I want to remind you that it is hard for children to grasp the concept that losing is not bad when their goal is always to win. "If my goal is to win, and I don't win, how is that good?" It isn't good, it's neutral, and your job as coach or parent is most important right here and now.
Children have a hard time grasping the concept because they don't separate positive and negative feelings from positive and negative actions. If an action is positive, they feel good about it. If an action is negative, they feel bad about it. The opposite of a positive action is a negative action. The opposite of winning is losing. Winning is positive and they feel good, so losing must be negative and they feel bad. Your job is to separate the negative feelings from the supposedly negative actions. This isn't to say that children shouldn't feel bad about losing; I believe they should because feelings drive action. If you didn't feel anything you wouldn't do anything.
So now what?
Teach children how to feel. When they feel bad about losing help them identify why they feel bad. Winning was the goal, and they lost; they didn't meet their goal and this is why they feel bad–negative feeling. However, on the flip side you teach them that losing, or not meeting the goal, is not a bad thing–negative action. Losing isn't bad or good, it is neutral, and at the same time, can be either good OR bad. Losing without learning why you lost and failing to improve and overcome is bad. Losing followed by analyzation and action is good in the long run.
This is quite simple to translate into kidspeak by the way, "I know you feel bad about losing, but now you have the opportunity to make yourself stronger. You tried your best, but you didn't meet your goals. It's o.k. to feel bad about that, but it isn't o.k. to quit or forget about it. Losing isn't good, but it isn't bad either, it's in between. How you handle this situation makes what happened good or bad." Depending on the age of the child you can alter this in the appropriate ways.
In a world where children's feelings are being bubble wrapped before seeing the light of day, having good parents and a good coach who help them understand, deal with, and respect their feelings will take them far in life. I don't think children should be protected from their feelings, just taught how to understand them. It is obvious that many others don't feel this way, and I understand that. I guess your other options are to to avoid using red ink when grading them, ban them from playing dodge ball, and make everything around them fair. Of course, if you want to prepare them for reality and make them stronger individuals I would suggest against those, and instead teach them how to react and adapt.
