It is not always about winning and moving ahead. Giving up, however, is never the solution and making your child understand that is equally important.
This weekend, we went to see Mira Nair’s Queen of Katwe. Inspired by the true story of Phiona Mutesi, the Ugandan chess prodigy, it’s a wonderful movie to watch with kids. Not only does it show them how children live in different parts of the world and often struggle to just get by. But it’s also a movie about grit (passion + perseverance, as Angela Duckworth says in her TED Talk). The movie shows us that even grit, coupled with prodigious talent and hard work, doesn’t always protect one from failure.
I struggle at times with what to tell my children. As parents, we say: work hard, focus, don’t give up and all will be yours. However, adults know that that’s not always true.
Disappointment is something one faces throughout life — from school to the work place and in our personal lives. Grown ups know that no matter how hard you work, someone, somewhere is working harder with more determination. At times, someone’s talent will just outclass your own. But we also know that’s no reason to give up. We still keep trying, if for no reason, than to better ourselves. But how do we help kids understand that, especially when no one’s handing out medals for ‘doing better’?
It’s something I’ve been thinking about a great deal, more so after my eight-year-old son recently experienced the hurt of warming the bench at his school’s inter-house swim meet. He was a reserve in two of the races, and knew well that the only way he could compete was if someone was absent. Or — as he prayed fervently — a classmate were kidnapped by Sith overlords for the day.
Sadly, the Sith overlords did not hear his prayers. So my son sat waiting for a turn which never came. As he got off the school bus, I could see disappointment writ large on his face and unshed tears at the corners of his eyes. “Life SUCKS!” he wailed as we walked home.
As we trudged home from the bus stop, I was on the verge of telling him that it was ‘alright’ and that he’d ‘get there next time’. Instead, I told him that he hadn’t practiced enough. That the kids who had raced that day had worked hard to earn a place in the final. It wasn’t soothing; it didn’t make him feel better. But it was the truth. “You have two options before you: quit or keep trying.”
I told him I had once attended coaching classes for college entrance exams. How, a few weeks in, I knew that almost everyone else was doing better than I was. Instead of persevering, I gave up. I still attended the classes and wrote the exams, but it was so that I didn’t feel guilty about wasting the fees that had already been paid up. I didn’t really try. And, yet, I expected that somehow I would scrape through. “Deep down inside I knew I had quit. And that felt awful.”
What would have happened if I hadn’t given up? I’ll never know. The next day, my son was back in the swimming pool, struggling with his backstroke. He does not know if it will be enough, but at least he will know that he tried.
(The writer’s parenting philosophy is: if there’s no blood, don’t call me)