Competition among children is a debate that has lingered for generations now. Some people argue that competition is good while others argue that competition is destructive. During the competition, children either in a contest or event like sports or exam contest apply their most favorable skills and knowledge to emerge as the best. It results to a victor and loser. However, losing does not subject the loser to complete destruction; but ideally highlights their weakness. In most cases, it creates fun, encourages children to give their best, and promotes healthy self-esteem. While this is true, competition can also foster inequality and rivalry. However, despite rivalry and inequality that is promoted by unhealthy competition, healthy competition should be encouraged as it promotes learning, which is a key advantage.
Healthy competition is advantageous since it encourages children to give out their best (Friedman). In every competitive activity and contest, one can only succeed by giving their best that will earn them a win. For instance, in school exam contents, children learn to be inquisitive on how they can achieve the best. Therefore, it encourages them to work hard and smart to surpass the required expectations. At times, it also requires them to work as a team to attain the requirements. In a real sense, winning is associated with rewards badges, books, and pens. Therefore, competition in class encourages all students to give their best (Hanna 45). Besides, everyone gets a chance to compete; therefore, everyone, whether winner or loser, wins in that they learn something of value.
Competition pushes children to build excellence in what they do. More so, it pushes children to build an attractive personality. As children compete, they continue to learn the important lessons in life, such as hard work and being smart. Therefore, it helps children to build their character based on their experiences (Friedman). For instance, in a sports competition, children learn how to be innovative to beat their opponents. It is an important aspect as an adult especially in place of work. For one to succeed in the workplace or business, one must be able to do things differently to have an edge over competitors. Again, people can be pressured into taking short cuts or the easier routes to beat others. Therefore, it is common to see people opt to cheat to get the results quickly and easily. For instance, one could copy exams or take drugs to do better in sports. In such cases, competition provides opportunities to make the right choices that help to build character and integrity of a person since one is supposed to use ethical means while competing.
Competition in sports encourages discipline, commitment, and sacrifice to succeed and become the victor (Friedman). These are important mental aspects that are very important in real life situation. Every opportunity in life represents competition where you have to give the best to succeed. Therefore, without patience, discipline, and commitment, one can easily lose out on the opportunity.
Competition among children or adults helps in the creation and setting of goals. Goals give people directions where they should put their efforts. To achieve such goals, one must be willing to persevere the hardships and have the determination to achieving goals. For instance, in a class competition, a kid can set a goal to attain grade “A” in mathematics. Therefore, to achieve the A, the kid must be willing to have group discussions, attending all classes, a series of revisions, and constantly researching in the library. It amounts to the determination to achieve the goals (Friedman).
According to Sievert, most parents shield their kids from the possibility of losing instead of helping them to cope with such losses. In most cases, parents let their children win forgetting that they can never shield them from losing their whole eternity. While winning is a very important aspect of competition, losing and accepting defeat is also important. Losing in a competition teaches important lessons in life that one cannot do without. The most important lesson people can learn from losing is learning mistakes, appreciating those mistakes, and improving oneself to better the results, which promotes growth. Without competition, it would be hard to know where one can do better and improve on their weaknesses. Every aspect of life is a competition and; therefore, losing challenges people on how they can better themselves or how they can perform better. As parents or teachers, it is important to teach children how to accept failure because it only makes them stronger and able to cope with such failures in life.
Competition creates fun, especially in sports. Competition in sports encourages children to participate because of possible rewards. Therefore, potential winners all compete for the various awards. A game without a winner tends to be boring because it's the urge of winning that keep competitors in a race. Sievert described how her five-year-old son competed in a pumpkin-decorating contest in which everybody won. Despite efforts to make him understand that everyone who had competed for one, the son kept nagging him asking who had won the competition. It shows that every game must have a winner and a loser, and everybody looks forward to this. Sievert continues to explain that they once had a game with her children, and after they played twice without a winner, they kept away the game. Therefore, an exciting game or contest creates more excitement when there are a winner and a loser.
Competition is a very important aspect of life as it prepares children for real life situation. Therefore, competition is not just about awards but the learning experiences as has been highlighted in the context above. Like earlier mentioned, it prepares a child for life challenges in life. Adult life is surrounded by competition is all aspects of life, for instance, getting a job, excelling in place of work, and establishing a thriving business. Lessons taught along the way helps a child to embrace winning and losing in a positive way (Hanna 68). According to Friedman, key lessons to learn from competition are the importance of winning, accepting defeat and bouncing back to win possibly in future, performing beyond set targets, coping with stressful situations and not losing focus when others are watching.
However, competition has its disadvantages. It must have winners and losers. Therefore, losing can lead to a person’s low self-esteem. According to Sievert, accepting defeat, especially for children, can be depressing. In turn, the depression can result in low self-esteem where children believe they are not good enough. Therefore, most parents try to shield their children from this humiliation and self-pity. Suzanne explains many situations that she had to protect her children because she could not face the frustrations of them losing. Competitions can affect negatively children who cannot accept failure.
Despite efforts to create healthy competition, most competitions are gruesome, and people have vested interests. Unfortunately, the competitive culture, especially in sports puts pressure on children that they have to win no matter what. Sometimes, agents of competition, such as parents and teachers create an environment where good is not enough, and a child has to win other than encouraging on the importance of winning. In such competitions, the winning is not about helping kids to become better, but a parents or teachers achieving their goals. Sievert states, “Coaches who lose the spirit of good sportsmanship in the heat of the game.” Such unhealthy competition attracts rivalry and creates enmity in competitions. Sometimes, there are cases where parents put pressure on teachers or coaches to ensure their children win. In turn, the coach creates an environment not meant to encourage individuals or team work.
Sometimes, competition attracts focus and determination in the wrong areas. For instance, when children pay too much attention to sports and forget about education (Friedman). It is mostly motivated by unhealthy competition, which is aimed mostly at making a name for oneself. Moreover, competition can attract bad motivation instead of focusing on rewards. For instance, the motivation behind one winning to have revenge on a person or a circumstance.
Another disadvantage is competition can be an agent of discrimination and promote inequality. Hilary states that competition in the past used to embrace all classes of life and, in particular, the less privileged. She explains that immigrants were given the chance to compete first, Friedman claims, “The forces that have led to increasing inequality in education, the workplace, and other spheres have come to the world of play.” Therefore, competition today has led to increasing inequality among children.
Works Cited
Friedman, Hilary L. "The Impact of Competitive Youth Sports on Children - Robert Wood Johnson Foundation." RWJF. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.
Hanna, Donald E. Higher Education in an Era of Digital Competition. Madison, WI: Atwood Pub., 2000. Print.
Sievert, Suzanne. "It's Not Just How We Play That Matters". Newsweek.com. N.p., 2010. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.
