Dylan starts "junior kindergarten" tomorrow. My biggest worry isn't how he'll handle his first day at a new school. No, instead, I will lose sleep on how he will handle, or mishandle, Friday, which will be "Bingo Day."
At orientation last week, I was squirming in my seat like a nervous fifth-grader as the teacher cheerfully announced that one day a week her 13 students will play Bingo. With only one winner, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to determine the odds are not with your child. She was fully prepped, she said with a smile, for students who would send their cards airborne if they lost. One child, she informed us, didn't learn the lessons of losing gracefully for WEEKS. I nodded my head vigorously as if to intuitively tell her, "This will be my child!" if it only takes weeks, I will be amazed!
YIKES!!! You see, in Dylan's world, it doesn't matter if he's watching ESPN’s SportsCenter highlights or smacking a piñata at a child's birthday party. It always boils down to: “Did I win?”
We have never stressed this one iota, but somehow Dylan is all about winning. In swimming class, I cringe when the teacher says, “OK, it’s time for a race!” This means my normally polite 5-year old will attempt to swim OVER other children in the pool if he’s not ahead. If he loses, he will throw goggles across the pool and wail --his crying echoing through the cavernous pool. Lovely. At this point, I consider asking the other parents if they know whose child is screeching at ear-piercing decibels, but I generally choose the route of head shaking and slumping in my chair.
He will watch SportsCenter, and if his beloved Texas Rangers lose, he has been known to weep openly. Unfortunately, this happens a lot!
Perhaps he has inherited this from me. My parents never stressed winning to me, either. My father coached me in tennis and always sent me off with a “have fun” – but it was never much fun to me if I lost. Luckily, that didn’t happen often. I finished second in the state of Missouri my senior year in high school in tennis singles. I played tennis for the University of Missouri until I entered journalism school and didn’t have the time to keep up with my studies and the demands of the sport.
In 2006, I took up running. I had never run track (my tiny school didn’t even have a track). My initial goal was to complete a half marathon, (13.1 miles), which I did after training for seven weeks. I ran my first full marathon that year and qualified for the Boston Marathon in my second marathon.
I ran Boston in April, and when he picked me up at the airport, Dylan asked me, “Did you win, mommy?”“Well… kind of… I finished, so that is like winning to me!” That answer seemed to satisfy him. But now we're coping with losing (or is the PC version "not winning?") My husband and I thought he could congratulate his opponent and say, "I'll get ‘em next time!" We thought this would appeal to his competitive nature.
This
has had mixed results. In games with dad and mom, it worked fine. But when losing a board game of Charades to one of his best buddies, he cried out, “I’ll GET YOU NEXT TIME!” in a way that was … uh… unsportsmanlike.
So now, we've changed tactics, telling him that while it's fun to win, that doesn't compare to the joy in just playing, which is the best part of all. I only hope he remembers this lesson come Friday...