Why is losing so important?

Learning to deal with disappointment

There may be nowhere where children can learn to cope with disappointment more effectively than by exercising. Disappointment and loss are part of life. Children who have learned to cope with adversity at a very young age may walk through life more easily than children who are afraid of making mistakes.

Nowhere should you take more losses than during exercise. If you want to get better, you have to practice, practice and practice again.

Perseverance, having patience, daring to fall, enduring pain, starting over again steadily and setting goals is something you never learn to achieve better than with your body.

What Can Parents Do?

Learning to deal with disappointments and setbacks already starts with learning to crawl, walk, learn to ride a bicycle and swimming. By nature, women are often inclined to protect their child. Then you see that if a child threatens to fall, the mother jumps up and may also scream. When the little toddler is startled by this, it can just decide not to do any more of those weird tricks.

Children therefore benefit from a challenge and that starts very early.

Did you fall? Too bad, kiss and get up again.

Blood knee: even more unfortunate, kiss, plaster and go on playing again.

Not daring to go on a swing or slide? Go on ... go on, daddy is there to help you.

What does trial and error mean to children?

When children have literally fallen and got up again many times and lost games and competitions, the reward in the end is a very healthy self-image and a lot of confidence. If you know what you can do, you do not have to doubt, at most you will suffer from healthy tension. Children who can cope well with loss and disappointment can become good friends with great social skills. Because they have learned how difficult and tedious it is to lose, they allow others to win and support each other when the going gets tough. They can distinguish between being bales of and about themselves and being happy for the other.

Another advantage good losers have is that they can also perform well at school. They may be less likely to hide behind excuses and blame others such as teachers or noise during a test for underperformance. These children take their responsibility and dare to admit that they may have learned too little for a test themselves. Because they are used to setting goals for performance, so do their school and homework. They know how to motivate themselves to achieve their goals and know that they learn the most and best by making mistakes. It is precisely making mistakes and a path of bumps and bumps that ultimately yields high quality.