Is it important for kids to learn about winning and losing? | Well actually

My boyfriend’s parents coached youth sports teams in the 90s, so they have many anecdotes about how children handle winning and losing. Two cousins on separate soccer teams were so competitive that the one who lost would refuse the post-game high-five, instead retreating to some nearby bushes to cry. A little girl used to kick opponents with her ice skates during hockey; another refused to pass because her dad gave her cash for every goal she scored. One boy, when his team lost, lay flat out on the ice and simply wouldn’t get up.

There’s a general consensus that, in addition to boosting fitness, youth sports impart valuable life skills, like teamwork and discipline. Winning and losing are especially significant, because they prepare children for the setbacks and challenges they will face in adult life.

Expert opinion on the topic is not uniform, but many agree with that general logic. “Winning and losing experiences are crucial,” says Dr Billy Garvey, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician and author of Ten Things I Wish You Knew about Your Child’s Mental Health. For children, especially those aged five to 12, learning to navigate the ups and downs of competition is a stepping stone to stable self-esteem and resilience, he tells me.

Garvey has a three-year-old daughter who, he tells me, is particularly competitive. “When she loses, I ensure that I connect with her, validate her frustration, anger or feeling that it’s unfair,” he says. Once she’s calmer, he adds, “I can help her learn the lesson in losing, by saying something like: ‘See how happy your little brother Charlie is that he won? I bet that feels nice for him.’”

“Disappointment should always be complemented with unconditional love and support,” says Garvey. When kids are supported through losing, they benefit psychologically from the understanding that their worth is not tied to their performance, and that their effort and growth matter more than winning, he says. Meanwhile, winning can be a “genuine opportunity to take pride in themselves when that effort has been successful”.

Jordan Lund has three children under age eight and coaches youth hockey, baseball and soccer in Squamish, British Columbia, in Canada. He agrees that kids need to experience competition, though a gentle approach is key. “Kids like to be challenged,” he says. “They have a fire and spirit in them to root for their teammates’ success and to accomplish things themselves.”

Lund’s teams don’t use scoring or standings yet, but he believes it’s important for kids to learn about winning and losing, provided coaches create a psychologically safe environment. That means no yelling at kids to “look alive” or embarrassing those who fumble a play. “Some of the coaches we had in the 80s were not so conscious of that,” Lund remembers.

Yet the environment of youth sports can often be shaped by a different set of values – one that prioritizes performance and victory above all else. Some experts argue that, in recent decades, youth sports, once a space for fun and personal development, have become increasingly high-stakes arenas where children are treated like miniature professional athletes.

“Sport as a whole is becoming more competitive,” says Jaclyn Ellis, a Chicago-based mental-performance coach who works with athletes in their pre-teens and older. “It’s becoming harder for athletes to accept failure because the pressure to perform is so intense, even at young ages.” Ellis observes this in junior leagues, too, where parents of children who express early interest or skill at a certain sport may route their child toward a path of specialization and intense training, hoping it will lead to scholarships and a career.

Ellis says over-ascribing to the win/lose binary is “called ‘all-or-none thinking’”, she says. “It’s very black-or-white, but most of the time, performance is not just good or bad – there’s a lot of grey area.”

Rigid thinking can make losing a threat to a player’s sense of self, and also render winning joyless. Ellis described one 14-year-old soccer player’s body language after a successful play. “She scored a goal and walked back, shoulders drooping, and her coach was like: ‘What, no celebration?’ and she just said: ‘Well, it’s my job to score a goal. Why should I celebrate that?’” Ellis recounts.

For perfectionists, this mindset can make them reluctant to even try unless they’re sure they can succeed flawlessly. “What is that teaching us?” Ellis asks. “We’re not willing to get out of our comfort zone, not even willing to try.”

Ellis uses cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques to help young athletes see that their worth isn’t tied to perfect outcomes. “We’re trying to rewire the brain to understand that ‘all or none’ thinking is hurtful to your mind and performance,” she says. Instead, she encourages young athletes to embrace challenges and imperfections, guiding them to see that growth is found not in a win or loss, but in having a positive mindset and mental flexibility.

This “cultural obsession with winning” or “professionalization” of youth sports is one reason kids are losing their enthusiasm for sports, says Ryan Snelgrove, a professor of sport and recreation management at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

According to data from the Aspen Institute’s Project Play, the percentage of US children aged six to 12 who regularly played a team sport dropped from 45% in 2008 to 37% in 2021 – a trend mirrored in countries like Canada, England and Australia. A 2024 report from the American Academy of Pediatrics reveals that 70% of children quit sports by age 13, often citing that they simply have stopped having fun.

“Kids say: ‘I stopped playing because I don’t have fun anymore,’” says Snelgrove. When Amanda Visek, a sports scientist and associate professor at the George Washington University, asked children to list and rank factors that make sports fun, winning came in 48th place. She found that kids valued “trying your best”, “getting play time” and bonding with teammates more highly.

Snelgrove has examined efforts to make youth sports more inclusive and boost participation. About a decade ago, Ontario Soccer and Canada Soccer launched player-development strategies that eliminated scoring and standings for children under 12, aiming to shift the focus from winning to skill development, cooperation and fun – the reason why parent and coach Lund’s teams don’t use scoring and standings.

Not everyone supports this shift. “A silent majority of people are by and large indifferent in the sense that they understand that there is a value for not always keeping score for focusing on other components. And then, there are those who would be happy to see a little bit more competition,” says Lund.

Some parents worry that removing the focus on winning undermines lessons in emotional strength and sportsmanship, says Snelgrove. “We have a lot of ‘character building’ social goals for youth sports,” he says, “but they’re a bit divorced from what developmental psychologists say is appropriate for children under 12, which is to focus mostly on enjoyment and developing cooperative skills.”

“Sports become a battleground in the culture wars,” Snelgrove adds. Debates over the value of participation trophies often reflect broader societal concerns about giving children the opportunity to develop grit. For instance, in 2023, North Carolina Republican senators introduced legislation to enact a statewide ban on youth sports awards “based solely on participation”. In 2018, when USA Hockey shifted its focus away from scoring and standings for junior players, there was little fanfare – intentionally. “When you challenge [people’s] beliefs, they dig their heels in pretty quick,” Ken Martel, senior director of player and coach development at USA Hockey, tells me.

Martel says USA Hockey is seeing growing registration: youth player rates increased 12% between 2009 and 2022. In the category for eight-year-olds and under, registration increased 94%. Soccer, meanwhile, has emerged as the most popular sport with Canadian children. It’s not possible to say how de-emphasizing scoring has affected these numbers, but it apparently hasn’t hurt.

Such participation trends also cannot speak to whether non-scoring sports really deprive children of valuable life experience. But adult experiences rarely organize into a tidy win-or-lose binary. Instead, as Ellis says, it’s often about navigating complex grey areas – nuanced scenarios that go far beyond the simplicity of victory and defeat. If eliminating the specter of a win-at-all-costs mentality helps more young athletes find joy in challenge and play, it could also better prepare them to be adaptable, even when things don’t go as planned.