Do you know this?

There are approximately 18000 parents registered with CARA, while the number of children in the Government's adoption pool is less 1800.

Friday, January 09, 2009

Bringing up children to be competitive

When one child does/ doesn’t do something correctly, we tend to compare to the other siblings without even thinking about the consequences. As parents we probably believe that the healthy sibling rivalry would bring out the best in our children.

Parents like to pit one child against the other to see who eats fast, and who gets ready first to go to school etc to get them to compete. But we tend to forget that in any competition there is a winner but also a loser. What does losing does to the child’s confidence in a long run?

I guess living in this competitive world (competing in school for grades, sporting and cultural events etc) is hard enough and they don’t need the home turned into a virtual war zone.

There are few things that parents can try to bring up a balanced child in this competitive world:

Instead of pitting siblings against each other, parent can become the competitors and lose to allow the child to win.

You must teach the child what it means to lose (allow them to lose sometimes).

Talk and teach children what it means to accept defeat in grace.

Give lots of hugs and kisses to losers to allow them to know that they are no less appreciated than the winner.

Don’t make a big issue when they don’t get intended grades in school but allow them to understand the scope for improving.

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