Overly Zealous to Win and Too Afraid to Lose

Conrad Ho, July 31, 2016 at Kalispell, the U.S.

Story 1

There was a summer camp in Mainland China this year in which the children participants were divided into five groups for conducting activities. In a competition event, three out of the five groups cheated, by ganging up and exchanging insider information among themselves, in a bid to get higher scores. After reading the reflection note of the day by the chief coach, my heart sank – it was not just one or two children playing foul, but 60% of the participants! Of course, some of the children in the three groups might not want to get involved; but, if there were any, they had not put forward their objection strong enough to stop the cheating. Moreover, it was reported that while the chief coach wanted to disqualify the cheating teams, some teacher or parent worried that the children could not cope with such a blow and suggested a lighter punishment. If the suggestion was accepted (I do not know the final decision), that meant the scores obtained through cheating were allowed to take part in the competition in some way. That was blatant appeasement of unfairness! From the various clues as presented in the reflection note, I judged that it should be a systemic problem, rather than individual weaknesses! I believed that parents and teachers of Mainland China should think more thoroughly on the priorities in parenting their children.Tao Stone

What is the ultimate aim of parenting children? Personally, I think that the aim is to facilitate a child to become the greatest “me” of his/her own choice; not the choice or definition of the parents or others, not a belittled “me”. In principle, I think this proposition should face little objection. However, in reality, there would probably be much more room for discussion over how to operationalize and implement. My proposition of its operationalization is: maximum success in life, defined as doing things you are willing to do most in the long run. Under such circumstances, a person would always have satisfaction within and happiness without.

Tracing along such logic, I come to this question: what kind of people would feel the happiest in the long run? Professor Robert Waldinger of the Harvard University was a psychiatrist. He took over a longitudinal study, which had been going on for 75 years since 1938, on 724 Harvard freshmen to find out the keys to “having a good life”. The result was obvious. Fortune and fame were not important, nor was hard work. It was good social relationships, defined as having an extensive social network, intimate relationships of high quality, and someone to rely on in case of need.

A child who was overly zealous to win and too afraid to lose, to the extent that he/she was willing to gang up with others to cheat, would probably be liked or disliked? His/her social relationships were more likely to be good or bad? A question for the parents and teachers: if you also believe in such scientific findings and the above logic, do you want the child you have trained up to win most of the times, yet be unhappy; or to be always happy regardless of having won or lost?

story 2

The National Geographic magazine commissioned Dan Buettner to conduct a comprehensive social investigation, to find out the places where people have lived the longest in the world and their secrets of longevity. In the book, The Blue Zones published in 2012, he reported that he had found nine so-called Blue Zones, including Okinawa in Japan, Sardinia in Italy, Loma Linda in South California of the US, etc. Some of the secrets of longevity he had found were already well-known, such as a predominantly vegetarian diet, a lifestyle with lots of physical exertion built into daily activities, having objectives in life, having religious beliefs ¡K etc. And, on top of these, a stable and good social network. A question for parents and teachers: if you agree that children who are overly zealous to win yet too afraid to lose probably would not have a good social network; while studies indicated that a good social network was one of the crucial keys to longevity. So, would you still choose to emphasize to your children the importance of winning, so that they are prompted to do whatever they can to eventually enjoy higher chances of winning, resulting in having a higher chance of a relatively shorter lifespan to enjoy their successes?

In life, is winning or losing really that important? So much so that it would worth any price?

My suggestion to parents and teachers is: when the opportunity cost is not yet too high, i.e. during play in childhood, the parent or teacher had better apply regulations stringently, so that children can have a pre-taste of the irreversibility and responsibility in adult life. Under such a practice, when children become adults physically, it is more likely that their mental age may also mature correspondingly. And, when they need to take up responsibility for their wrongdoings, they would more likely be able to shoulder it boldly and independently.

In educating children, we must look beyond this very second, minute or even year. There is an old Chinese saying: It would take ten years to grow a tree, but a hundred years to nurture a personality. In parenting children, the planning horizon should be their whole lifespan. Only with a correct strategy (i.e. direction) can we judge whether a decision is good or not. This is what strategic parenting is all about.