One of the things that I love about my blog is that it is indeed an online journal. It is a place that provides me with a snapshot of moments of my life. I especially enjoy reading about my children and the experiences that we have shared together.
I have had the chance to document my son’s love for Scooby-Doo as well as his blasphemous belief that Scrappy Doo is cool. I recounted some of my daughter’s antics, my son’s religious questions and discussed some things that I want to teach my children.
I love my children. Each day I look forward to seeing them. I love the look they give me when I give them their blessing. I get so much out of that. There is nothing like feeling those little arms wrapped around my neck and hearing “I love you daddy.” I get choked up just thinking about it.
And it is because of this burning unconditional love for them that I am able to deal with some of the harder things in life with a smile. With beautiful kids like this, how can I not. This brings me to the topic of the post, teaching children not to quit. It really is a continuation of my post Teaching Children To Lose Gracefully.
The reality is that life is not fair and at times it can be quite hard. One of my responsibilities as a parent is to help them gain coping skills. They have to learn how to fail. They have to learn what to do when their best effort does not produce the result that they want and how to learn from these experiences.
It is hard lesson to learn and I cannot say that I have any magic formula. But I have been working with son on helping him learn that failure is not a license to give up. It is a reminder that whatever we were doing was not working and it is time to find a new angle. To make it more interesting I have tried to help him look at this as being a game.
I think he gets it. I intentionally am not letting him beat me at all of the games that we play. Sometimes I beat him. He still doesn’t like losing, but he realizes that he will not lose every time. I rather suspect that it won’t be all that long before I have to try hard not to lose. His mind works so quickly.
My daughter is a little too young to get too deeply involved with this, but I am not sure that I am going to have to talk to her about this. She adores her big brother and is forever trying to imitate him. As I watch her chase him around the house I see such determination. She is tough.
I suppose that the real point of this post is just to say again how much I love my children. What a joy, what a blessing. I am so very thankful for them.
Mrs. B,
Thank you.
Chana,
Parenting is tough.
Elster,
Obviously I feel your pain. 😉
Amazing. My daughter, soon to be 6, LOVES LOVES LOVES Scooby Doo and the gang and also has perfectionism issues to the point where I intentionally feel the need to destroy her at simple games because everyone else just lets her win.
I echo your sentiments!!
My 7 yo DD also hates to lose. Board games, (unorganized) sports with friends, games, raffles…
She can be a real perfectionist at artistic things. She works very hard and has pride in her work, but she doesn’t always want to move on to the next activity in the classroom.
Piano lessons have been a struggle. I do not want her to quit. I think it sets a bad precedent – many of her friends are allowed to ‘try’ things – even activities where the parents have to invest all sorts of money in uniforms and equipment, and if they last the season it’s a shock.
It is so frustrating to me when I am trying to help her sometimes with homework, piano and such, and she is stubborn and resistant, but really, thank G-d she’s NORMAL. 🙂 She has a beautiful, caring Yiddishe neshama, is loving and caring with her brother and other little kids, and her Jewish studies teachers have said she davens beautifully. B’H!!
Beautiful post Jack. Children are a blessing and we need to always remember that.