At what point should winning matter to a kid?

[pthawaii]

Interested of the opinions of parents that have older kids HS or older. It's common to hear that at a young age, it shouldn't matter to a kid if he wins or loses, as long as he's having fun, learning, building character, etc. Then, at some point, having a strong desire to win is a good thing for an athlete, ala Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, etc. Competitive fire is part of the high level athlete.

At what age would you say this transition in thought is desirable?

[tg643]

Kids should care from their first game of Candyland and Chutes and Ladders. But they also need come to understand they can't win every game and how to lose graciously. Kids games are about fun. But competitive kids have it in them to want to win. We never let our kids win anything. They've had to earn. More important then being athletic competitors and performers they have competed and performed in the classroom.

[azmatsfan]

I don't see having a desire to win as being a negative thing. My oldest has always been extremely competitive at everything, even at a young age. There's a hilarious picture of his 13U team after a tournament last fall. His AAA team came in 2nd place out of 24 teams, including many Major teams. Personally I was very proud of the team. Every kid in the picture has the medal around his neck with a huge smile. My son is holding his medal up, looking like his dog just died. He refused to put the medal on because it was for second place. He said he didn't understand why his teammates were happy finishing second. This is just how he is. We just got home tonight from a 45 minute session at the batting cage. Last night we spent 90 minutes at the cage. (To be fair 60 minutes of it was a team batting practice.) After getting home tonight he asked me if I'd give him some soft toss in the garage. I declined. I told him this drive he has is either going to make him a great player or make him insane.

My point is that as a parent we shouldn't tell our kids when or if winning the game should matter or not matter. The only thing we need to do is try to keep things in perspective and not put pressure on them because WE want the win.

[dominik]

To the kids it should (and will) matter from day one. but for the coaches and parents I would say not before 12U or so.

[johnlanza]

To the kids it should (and will) matter from day one. but for the coaches and parents I would say not before 12U or so.

My opinion is almost 180 degrees different. I'd say for most of the kids on our 7/8 yo team, the winning is secondary. However, for the remaining players, it follows what I would expect to be the norm: the kids who hate defeat the most also happen to be coaches' sons. Speaking as one of the coaches, though we have had scoreboard success, I will say we are also on the "laid back" mentality. While my son doesn't take losing very well, he's never out of control. As we journey into the next level of 9 yo kid-pitch, I hope our coaching style keeps all the players wanting to stay involved with baseball.

[Jake Patterson]

... the kids who hate defeat the most also happen to be coaches' sons.

Great observation.

[tradosaurus]

Interested of the opinions of parents that have older kids HS or older. It's common to hear that at a young age, it shouldn't matter to a kid if he wins or loses, as long as he's having fun, learning, building character, etc. Then, at some point, having a strong desire to win is a good thing for an athlete, ala Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, etc. Competitive fire is part of the high level athlete.

At what age would you say this transition in thought is desirable?

Based on T-ball tourmaments I would say it starts at 3 y.o. :cap:

[mellowthunder]

I don't think wanting to win at an early age is a problem. Every kid should want to win, and most do. The problem is how kids handle themselves after a win or a loss. What you don't want to see is kids brag after a win and you don't want to see them be depressed all day after a loss. I don't understand how some parents can be proud of their kids for not being happy or smiling after a loss. Really? It's not that serious. I'm all for bringing your competitive spirit during the game and wanting to crush the competition, but once the game is done you should get over it as quickly as possible and get back to enjoying life.

[leecemark]

--My kids are very competive at individual games at home. They really hate to lose. They and the other kids on the team (7-9) don't seem overly concerned about the score in our games though. I'm sure they'd rather win, but we only have one kid who actually gets upset when we lose. I make a point of congratulating every hit (or even good AB for some of the kids who don't hit so well), good play on defense or solid inning on the mound. I never say anything about physical errors during the game. I do remind them of what they were supposed to do in the case of mental errors (failure to cover a base, go out as cutoff man, etc), but try to do it gently and remind myself to work on it harder the next practice.
--At this age group the focusing on the good things they do and not on the score seems to be enough to keep them happy. Thankfully the parents have been positive and supportive through an 0-3 start and hopefully they will stay that way even if it takes awhile to get that first win. I am rotating players through positions and the batting order more than what I've seen from the other teams so far. The only position that has to be "earned" is pitcher, where they have to be able to throw a reasonable percentage of strikes. Even there we've got enough kids getting a chance that we've used 6 different pitchers in 3 games and nobody has worked more than 2 innings in a game. The other teams have all used just 2 pitchers in our games (possibly others in other games though).

[bballdad175]

I have a high school sophomore and have coached for a long time now including his 16U summer/fall team.

I have seen that at 7/8 they really like to win, but it is easy to get them to overlook it depending on the quality of the snacks afterward.

At 9/10 it gets a little harder for them to swallow a losing season, but still doable. Individual games are not much of an issue. Focus on fundamentals at practice, and always leave the last 30 min for something the kids like to do or some type of game at practice. The games should be kept light and fun always. Giving a game ball away at every game is enjoyed by the paretns and the players. You can always find something good that happened.

At 11/12 it's the hardest, although individual games are not so much an issue, only blowouts or a losing season. This is where you really have to work at getting them to see the bigger picture. It helps to have the parents on board - this is recreation and its a game and losing is not that fun so you'll have to really work at it from the get-go. But the kids will follow the coaches and parents lead. Stay positive and always focus on fundamentals and key improvements seen in games. And find ways to keep practices fun. After a particularly bad stretch, bring them ice cream, have a bunting contest (with winners/losers bracket and 3 or 4 teams) where the winners get to coach the next game (make lineup, etc) or something stupid like this.

At 13/14 the kids loosen up a little. As long as you can win a few games and keep things light at practice at games, they can tolerate losing unless their buddies at school start talking crap about them. Then it's harder. But they are still just kids and the things they liked at 11/12 can still work (bunting contests, random players pitching an inning here and there).

At 15/16 the kids are more serious about their game and understand that losses are part of it. So it is not a big deal as long as the coaches and parents are leading the way.

Did you catch the theme? the *coaches* and *parents* have to lead the way that losing is part of the game. You can always turn it to your advantage to either learn life lessons, get better at the game, or just plain enjoy being out there with your friends. But it doesn't work if the coaches or parents are part of the problem.

[Jake Patterson]

Interested of the opinions of parents that have older kids HS or older. It's common to hear that at a young age, it shouldn't matter to a kid if he wins or loses, as long as he's having fun, learning, building character, etc. Then, at some point, having a strong desire to win is a good thing for an athlete, ala Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, etc. Competitive fire is part of the high level athlete.

At what age would you say this transition in thought is desirable?

I feel this is the wrong question to ask.... It should always matter, but it needs to be age appropriate.

Maybe on a scale of 1:10
6U 1-2
10U 3-4
12U 4-5
14U (Big Field) 6-7
HS 7-8

College - 9-10

[The Flush]

There seems to be a wide range of ages where they care about it. Some know who "won" even in games where scores and standings are not kept. My son was one of those. In our last 10U game in which we won by coming from behind with an inside the park grand slam in the top of the last inning (and our field has a scoreboard), one of our kids asked me after the game who won. He cared who won, but not enough to actually pay attention to the game he was playing in.

[CircleChange11]

I feel this is the wrong question to ask.... It should always matter, but it needs to be age appropriate.

Maybe on a scale of 1:10
6U 1-2
10U 3-4
12U 4-5
14U (Big Field) 6-7
HS 7-8

College - 9-10

Jake, although it goes completely against my own preference ... it seems that the older kids get, the more they are fine with losing as long as they did really well. I see more older kids sulk after a win, if they didn't have much to do with it.

IMHO, it's more difficult for the younger ages to understand that they have little to no control over the strength of their opponent. So, in some games, winning may not be something that is the realistic expectation (although no coach would ever say this out loud). It is very difficult for kids to focus on "process" rather than "result".

I have generally been "okay" with losing, provided we made the team beat us. If we beat ourselves, that tends to be agonizing. IMHO, you can;t put the scoreboard up there and expect the kids not to look at it all the time. Kids aren't stupid. They know what's what. I think we have unrealistic expectations on what kids could/should be able to do in regards to controlling their emotions/competitiveness in many situations.

I think it's also unrealistic to expect kids to be able to on/off their competitiveness ... but we do strive on how to teach them to "manage it". But, even that can be tricky because adults have different preferences as well. Over the course of their career, kids could be exposed to all sorts of different influences/suggestions on how competitive they should be.

[Jake Patterson]

Jake, although it goes completely against my own preference ... it seems that the older kids get, the more they are fine with losing as long as they did really well. I see more older kids sulk after a win, if they didn't have much to do with it.

IMHO, it's more difficult for the younger ages to understand that they have little to no control over the strength of their opponent. So, in some games, winning may not be something that is the realistic expectation (although no coach would ever say this out loud). It is very difficult for kids to focus on "process" rather than "result".

I have generally been "okay" with losing, provided we made the team beat us. If we beat ourselves, that tends to be agonizing. IMHO, you can;t put the scoreboard up there and expect the kids not to look at it all the time. Kids aren't stupid. They know what's what. I think we have unrealistic expectations on what kids could/should be able to do in regards to controlling their emotions/competitiveness in many situations.

I think it's also unrealistic to expect kids to be able to on/off their competitiveness ... but we do strive on how to teach them to "manage it". But, even that can be tricky because adults have different preferences as well. Over the course of their career, kids could be exposed to all sorts of different influences/suggestions on how competitive they should be.

The thing we tried to teach was "all you can do is all you can do." You cannot control whether you win or lose because you cannot control your opponent, the field, umps, etc... All you can do is control what it is you do. So being concerned about winning, in my opinion is the wrong thing to worry about...

[CircleChange11]

The thing we tried to teach was "all you can do is all you can do." You cannot control whether you win or lose because you cannot control your opponent, the field, umps, etc... All you can do is control what it is you do. So being concerned about winning, in my opinion is the wrong thing to worry about...

We're the same way. We continually ask questions like ... Did you swing at a good pitch? Did you hit it hard? Can you control what the defender does? Did you throw a strike? Was it a good pitch? Can you control what anyone else does?

I've always enjoyed the quote, "If you don't win, make the winner break the record."