Helping your child cope with losing...

zebrafish

zebrafish

SILVER ELITE
I'm curious what those more experienced than me have to say about how to handle losing.

My child is playing on a new team this year. Since Feb, they've played a number of scrimmages and tournaments-- probably a total of ~15-20 games. They've won a single game. Among the rest, I'd say 1/3 of the games have been competitive losses, 1/3 of the games are lopsided losses, and 1/3 of the games are really lopsided losses.

The coach is clearly not coaching to "win". He puts players in different positions. He probably could win more games by playing restricted positions. I definitely want my child to move around the field. I like the coach-- he isn't a "joysticker" or "screamer".

My daughter is probably one of the top couple players on the team. I've seen her level of play jump, and I think the coach has really helped improve my child's weaknesses (I'm really happy about this). The rest of the team maybe not so much-- part of this is there are kids on the team who seem to have parents pushing them but the kids aren't that invested-- but there is global movement in right direction.

From informal asking of opponents, I suspect the tier the team will play in during fall may be slightly above their level (tier 2)-- we've lost to a fair number of tier 2/3 teams (and been blown out by tier 1 teams). I am told it can be difficult to gauge what happens in the fall based on spring play.

I worry how losing so many games is potentially not good for the enjoyment factor. My child doesn't take losing particularly personally, and I think there are important lessons to be learned from losing, but no kid likes getting hammered every game (especially a 0-3 tournament with combined 25-3 scores and such). She still practices and plays hard.

Lots of questions buried in here, but I'm interested what feedback people have about the situation.

I'm giving my child lots of praise for effort and improvement. Certainly, I'm planning to ride it out (no choice at this point), but perhaps others who have gone through similar experiences can provide their input/suggestions.
 
Biggest morale booster after a loss is ice cream. My daughter's 6th year of club. Lost a good game this morning 0-1. Ice cream melted that sadness.
1 dad on our team used to keep track of stats for his daughter of good things she did during the game. Take aways, passes connected, winning 50/50 balls, etc to keep her motivated as a defender so she wouldn't be so focused on the wins/losses.
 
I'm not making any judgments here, I'm sure you and others are already doing much of this, but you asked...

Make sure you are being positive. Your 9 year old wants to hear that you enjoyed watching her play. Don't talk about how the other team cheated, or how they got jobbed by the referee. Talk about how you enjoyed watching her do her best. Add some specifics and tell her that you look forward to watching her play again.

Kids will soak up the sideline attitude,. Hopefully there aren't a whole lot of negative parents and try to keep her away from it as much as practical. You'll have to make sure you explain to her why they are wrong to focus on the bad things.

It sounds like the coach might be alright. Hopefully he/she isn't in over his/her head. Look for signs of panic. If he/she is just screaming at the kids, they will not want to play for him/her.
 
Has your coach explained his philosophy to the parents? The kids will get over a loss pretty quickly at that age. But the parents will talk for hours on end about "What's wrong" or "What we really need is..."
If you win every game, you are at the wrong level. If you lose every game, you are at the wrong level.
Maybe your coach is playing tougher teams to get your girls ready for the season when you'll be playing at the right tier. Or maybe he's just taking any scrimmage he can find and not worrying about who he is playing. Scrimmages should be somewhat strategic to help your team improve.
I think it's good to play a team that you think is better than you one week and then play a team that is more your equal or a bit less the following week. Better teams force a faster speed of play. When you play a fast team one week and then a slower team the next week, it makes it look like your team has improved 10x in a week.
But if your team is spending money and travelling to tournaments and getting blown out in all 3 games, you guys might want to pump the brakes on tournament play. Or find smaller tournaments with lesser competition (every tournament will have that 1 sandbagger that's in the wrong flight, so expect that).
It sounds like your coach is doing the right thing by moving players around.
And as long as your kid is happy, safe and improving you should feel alright.
 
zebrafish said:
.........I worry how losing so many games is potentially not good for the enjoyment factor. My child doesn't take losing particularly personally, ..........She still practices and plays hard........
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If your child is not bother by it and is developing (which is the most important thing at 9 for any sports), it shouldn't bother you either.

Frankly, nobody cares how many games you win or lose at this age. Try not to keep track because it can only worry you. Kids only look at it game by game, and not consecutive streaks or accumulated results. The enjoyment by the parents is not great but really, its about the kid.

I do second the notion of playing the right opponent, especially at the tournaments. Getting slaughtered is not fun for anyone, including the team that's beating you. So ask your manager and express your concern to him/her and have the coach address the parents about how the team is doing and his intent is - rather than guessing. Probably should only enter low-profile easy tournaments rather than high-profile, famous tournaments know for competitiveness.

Its very important to get on the same page with the coach's intent and expectations of the team and the season so that parents don't react negatively....sort of like you have.

Good luck and remember, its just 9 years old and nobody cares that you won a lot at 9. Skills, skills skill - get harder to develop older the child.
 
Focus on developing a winning attitude & feeling good about themselves and having a healthy attitude towards sports.

DON'T DEFINE SUCCESS & FAILURE IN TERMS OF WINNING & LOSING

skill acquisition and mastery is the most important thing for young players

If a youth player performs to their potential and loses, or plays their very best and loses, you need to help them feel like a winner!

Help your player make this important separation between success and failure and winning and losing. Remember, if you define success and failure in terms of winning and losing, you're playing a losing game with your child!

Help make the sport fun for your player.

The more fun an athlete is having, the more they will learn and the better they will perform. Fun must be present for peak performance to happen at every level of sports from youth to world class competitor!

Telling your children you are proud of them, whether they win or lose. Do this before they even play, after they play and as often as possible when it has nothing to do with sports.
 
timbuck said:
But if your team is spending money and travelling to tournaments and getting blown out in all 3 games, you guys might want to pump the brakes on tournament play. Or find smaller tournaments with lesser competition (every tournament will have that 1 sandbagger that's in the wrong flight, so expect that).
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^^^Exactly this! ^^^

Brand new U10 team, playing in "a number of tournaments," as you write ... no no no, that's not a recipe for development. There are plenty of friendlies out there a new team can play, and there's little reason for a 3-game weekend at this point since the girls aren't going to remember what they should have done differently in the 4th minute of the first game four days ago.

"Parents, we can't make any changes between the 100 minutes they already played today and tomorrow's game, so go drive 1 hour home and come back again at 7:30 a.m. - so wake your daughter up at 6:00 Sunday! - so we can see the exact same level of play again tomorrow." ​

If you are paying for lots of tourneys right now, your manager needs to rethink the game plan. (Although am assuming, since you are SDCSL club, that your club is mandating these tourneys due to recirprocal agreements. Bad.)
 
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p.s. As long the 9-year-olds are improving their level of play, following the coach's style and taking it from practice into the games, and not playing kickball, losing games is not bad .... assuming the coach is not in over his/her head. You will catch up to the teams that already have headstarts on your girls. I'd be more concerned if my coach was pigeon-holing the 9-year-olds into set positions all season and making winning the priority.
 
Definitely don't perpetuate the myth that the game was lost because of something the ref did or something the other team did (i.e. extra physical, etc.). I hate that and nip it in the bud when my son tries to pull that crap.

Most times, I think we can talk about what was good about a game and keep it positive, but sometimes he just doesn't play well. It's really hard for me not to just blurt it out. I've become the master of silence in the car after a particularly bad game. Usually, I'll just ask if he's hungry and pretend the game never happened. Until we've all moved on and it can be discussed without the fresh sting in our minds. Usually at bed time.

But I also don't like the habit of saying "good job" after every game when he clearly didn't do a good job. I think that's just confusing. Most of the time, HE KNOWS he did a bad job, so telling him he did a good job just annoys him (which infuriates my wife, because she always has a "good job" at the ready).
 
I always like to ask my daughter "How do you think you did"? She knows if her energy level wasn't there, or she was a bit too hard on a first touch. What is funny is she doesn't like it if I tell her that she had a great game when in fact she did have a great game. Doesn't want that much praise. Not too many highs or lows for this kid.
 
My daughter played on a similar team around that age. I believe they won 1 game. The kids had a great time. They wanted to win and tried. Minutes after the game was over the kids forgot and were happy.

Some of the parents were not happy...and rather pissed off.

Myself...very pleased.

Why?

When I looked at the progress she made getting a season playing competitive soccer and the progress of the rest of the team made it was apparent they all improved greatly. She was having fun too. It was a win - win.

Fast forward. This year her team will play in the Far West and NPL leagues. Next year when she is a U14...we will give a run at getting on one of the ECNL teams.
 
My younger son had a similar experience last month, in a different sport.

He went to a swim meet in Ventura in June. He was having a great meet, dropping significant time in all his events. His coach was impressed with his improvement and put him on the relay team. Somehow, the coach put him as anchor, even though he was the youngest and the slowest. Given a big lead, he lost the race by 4 100ths of a second.

As he was getting out of the pool, I raced to reach him. Before I even got there, his teammate, P, one of the fastest swimmers in So Cal, comforted my son. It wasn't your fault, P said. It was mine. You dropped in your split and I added.

The lesson I want my boys to learn from this experience is that should their teammate ever be in my son's situation, I want them - and myself - to be the P to him. More important than winning is kindness and maturity that P taught me and my boys.
 
My son's team went 12-2 one season, won their circuit, and were promoted to the top level. The next year they were 2-12. That took care of the fear of losing.
 
DD lost 3 seasons in a row in AYSO, they won 1-2 game each season. It was starting to get un-fun. Then we "tricked" her into being a goal keeper and said it was great she could get all that action and attention she couldn't get on a winning team. She actually kept that attitude in club and it wasn't till later when she saw winning teams got to do things that non-winning didn't she wanted a change. The idea was for here to try things in games and being successful at it was a kinda win. Very few Ulittle teams really play well as teams anyway, so the whole team winning/losing thing is relatively easy to remove from focus. Later (age 16+) it became all about her team winning and she would gladly give up goals for a team win.
Still - if there is that much losing going on - think about moving to a more winning team.

The idea to play without points or score or some goal was weird from real early (see clip of DD). Losing always sucked. But when she found she could use competition and losing to do better personally, or something like that, it was not so bad.
 
When you have a feeling that it's going to be a long season (ie. winning less than 30% of the games), then I think it's important to give your child individual metrics to reach for each game. The match result isn't something your child can control, but they can control their effort and how they apply the things they learn in training. So even though the team may lose 5-0, but for example if my kid gets 4 tackles in, checks for pressure before receiving the ball, or has a good pass completion percentage, then it's ice cream time post-game.

Honestly, my kids (and myself) have a harder time dealing with sitting on the bench rather than losing. You can learn from losing, but it's difficult to learn (whether winning or losing) if you're sitting on the bench for the majority of the game. I've seen more kids quit sports due to lack of playing time rather than losing seasons.

That' said, I do think the coach and club should strive to make sure the team is competitive in at least 50% of the games even if they end up losing the majority of them. It's difficult to learn when a team is getting completely overwhelmed and blown-out in 80-90% of the games, so coaches have to be realistic when choosing a flight for a team and be in sync with team managers. Some clubs feel the need to field a team in every flight for marketing/recruitment purposes even if their talent pool can't support it.

With the age-group shakeup, I think all coaches should get a free pass this year but the smarter coaches will take a more conservative approach to league/tournament selection while their teams gel. It's not really good to overly stress a team before they've established some cohesion.
 
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As you mention. Depends on skill/age but if playing a lopsided game some players don't get much action - on both sides. DD was a GK and in the early years we looked for teams where she would get some action. Later, winning mattered more.
 
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