Ashley Merryman in The NY Times has some advice on the cultural drugs we are fed. (HT David Murray)
The author argues that we are teaching our children something wrong when everyone wins. In fact, she argues, we need to teach them how to lose:
In life, “you’re going to lose more often than you win, even if you’re good at something,” Ms. Twenge told me. “You’ve got to get used to that to keep going.”
When children make mistakes, our job should not be to spin those losses into decorated victories. Instead, our job is to help kids overcome setbacks, to help them see that progress over time is more important than a particular win or loss, and to help them graciously congratulate the child who succeeded when they failed.
This is common grace character wisdom that stands against the culture of self-esteem.
I argued the same thing here when highlighting a quote of Tim Tebow after losing. Teaching our children how to honor the Lord in defeat should be on our discipleship agenda. Is it on yours?
