Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't

I was reading in the paper this morning that our province’s soccer association is considering removing scoring from the soccer games of children under the age of 12. After this announcement the paper took a poll of its readers and 75% of its readers were against this idea.

I am a firm believer that in life, sometimes you win and sometimes you loose. And as tough as that may be sometimes, that is how it goes. We can’t always win. I don’t think we are doing our children any favours by sheltering them from this reality. Eventually, they are going to experience it, in school, in the workplace and in relationships. I am alright with putting less emphasis on it in the really young years and I by no means agree with screaming at your child to win, win win but I do think it’s a reality they need to deal with, loss or win.

 
I am reminded of an article I read a while back that I printed out and keep meaning to put on my fridge for my kids to read:

 
(I love this list!)

 
11 Rules You Will Never Learn in School by Bill Gates

Rule 1: Life is not fair, get used to it

Rule 2
: The world does not care about your self esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.


Rule 3: You will not make $60,000 a year right out of high school, you won’t be a vice president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not below your dignity. Your grand parents had a different word for burger flipping: They called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine from your mistakes learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way by paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winner and losers but life has not. In some schools, they have abolished falling grades and they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is not real life, in real life people have to leave a coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds, chances are you’ll end up working for one.

 
What do you think, scoring or no scoring for aged 12 and under? And as for Bill's points of wisdom? Does one really stand out for you?

 

Comments

  1. I'm soooooo with you on the winning and loosing - I also agree with ALL of the Bill Gates points......... It's odd to me that it seems the majority of folks feel this way yet the world seems to be moving more and more away from these common sense points.

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  2. I LOVE the Bill Gates advice, but I gotta say: I HATED it when my parents would tell me life wasn't fair! It totally isn't, though. :( As for not keeping score, I'm with you: maybe 5-year-olds starting out shouldn't worry about a score as much as the rules of the game, but 12-year-olds?? Give me a break. Kids are naturally competitive. You can bet they're mentally keeping score and always know who wins.

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  3. Totally agree. Did you know that one of our schools out here did away with allowing children to play tag....it was just too unfair!!

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  4. Number 6 was my favorite! Thanks for stopping by Bad Word Mama :)
    BTW.. I love the name of your blog.

    -Ellen

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  5. I never did get all the BS about never failing! Life is definately about failing and learning to get right back up and we wonder why the younger people's suicide rates are way up???

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