As a parent, you have to figure out the balance between pushing your kid to succeed and rise to challenges, but not letting them get discouraged by failure.
This can be encapsulated in a simple game of soccer in the front yard that I played the other day with Paco.
I could beat him 10-0, but he would get discouraged.
I could let him win 10-0, but then he would think he his better than he is.
The questions
- when to let him score?
- when to score on him?
- when to make it easy for him to score?
- when to make him work for it?
And, in each game, to ask: should he be the overall winner or loser?
It’s a constantly evolving assessment of the boy’s development and his attitude at that particular moment.
Which is, I imagine, kind of like parenting in general.
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