I was talking to my oldest today. **Fancy that** I don't know how we got on the topic but I asked her if she enjoys competition. I had never stopped to consider whether or not she's a competitive person. The truth is she's not. I came to that conclusion pretty quick and she verified it. She likes to participate but doesn't really care all that much about winning.
My youngest child is definitely competitive. EVERYTHING is a competition... who finishes eating first, who buckles their seat belt first, etc. It drives me nuts. BUT.... I can understand that mindset. I am a VERY competitive person. I'm so competitive that I go to the extreme and rarely if ever do anything that I'm not good at. New things are practically paralyzing because of my fear of failure. I consider not being extremely good at something failure.
It occurred to me today that I may be taking the wrong approach to parenting my oldest. I need to get a grasp on what motivates her. I tend toward pushing her to succeed at whatever and actually work to be the best at whatever she's doing. If she doesn't care to be good at stuff then it doesn't do me any good to push her. I'm not saying she should do less than her best, but that she might do better if I would just lay off and let her find her own way through stuff. I had this "ah-ha" moment when I asked her if she was interested in doing swim practice two-a-days. She has that opportunity and I think it's awesome! I was at the gym every time they'd let me when I was competing. Extra practices were better than gold. I wanted perfection. I strived for perfection. Dominating the competition was my reward and it felt REALLY good to win. She wasn't interested. The simple fact of my oldest is that competition holds no reward for her. That isn't the way she works.
I'm left with the question.... if you aren't motivated by winning, what else is there?
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