The Everyone Must Win Generation

Watch this and I will explain my thoughts on this :



Apparently the "Jeopardy" officials did not give credit to a kid who spelled the final answer wrong and this is causing a big stir and a ton of backlash against the show's decision to not count the answer.  The kid is complaining that he was cheated out of money because of just a spelling error. I guess that many people are on the kids side.

I am not.

I do not watch Jeopardy and haven't watched it for years, but I assume that the rules are communicated to each contestant before they are on the show . I am also sure that the contestants understand that the judges rulings are final . Does the kid have a right to complain? Sure he does, but what gets me is the anger that people feel towards the game show because of this. This can only be explained by the fact that many people believe that we can not let our children feel disappointment. That we need to bend the rules so everyone can win.

Bull honky!

Another example of this is how they "grade" the kids at our local school. They use pluses and minuses instead of number or letter grades. I have talked to parents and some teachers about this and they would rather use the more traditional system because it better communicates how well or poorly the child is doing in school. I agree.

I hated bringing home my report card because I knew that my parents would not be pleased with my grades, but by the grading standards that are used in some of the school's today , I would have looked like a good student.We worry too much about the child's feelings today. There is a feeling that if a child does not achieve their goals then we have to give it to them anyway.

Kids need to learn what it is to not achieve a goal, to lose a game ,to overcome something that may seem unfair. This builds a stronger person , someone who can take something that may be a negative and turn it into a positive.Losing is not a bad thing when we use it to better ourselves, kids today need to learn that.

When I was in 7th grade, the basketball team I played on lost every single game that we played. We were 0-16 . We didn't complain. We vowed that we would be better and we won our league championship the next season because we learned to use that 0-16 year as motivation.

So parents, it is ok if your child doesn't win, teach them by your words and your actions that you can learn much more about yourself when you lose.