Enjoy the struggle as much as the result

Ehaan loves to run – and boy, does he run fast! For him, running gives him a sense of freedom and joy (I think!). He also participates in lots of races at school and in the track-and-field class that he goes to in the evenings.

Whenever I go and watch the race, I am always urging him to run faster. If there is a ‘themed race’(e.g., back-and-forth, relay etc), I often yell ‘strategies and tactics’ at him so that he can win. He never listens to any of it. After the race, in case he has won, I congratulate him. In case he has lost, I often ask him (stupidly) things like “why didn’t you run fast?”, “where was your focus?”, “you could have run faster in the closing 20 mtrs” – essentially, observations which are correct but totally useless to him. I am amazed by the responses he gives me as follows:

■      “[competitor who won] ran so fast – zoooooooooom”

■      “I had such a good time. Can we come again tomorrow to run?”. “Can we come again tomorrow to run?” My response was, “No, tomorrow there is no race.” He retorts, almost surprised, “So what if there is no race. The ground and track will still be here. So we can run.”

■      “I saw you cheering me – who was the other Papa beside you?”

■       “Sir clapped so loudly. I heard him shouting my name”

■      “Who runs faster – Flash, Lightning McQueen or me?” I think Lighting McQueen since he is a car”

It’s almost as if he has shut me and my random instructions out completely. He never focuses on coming first, though I know in the heart-of-hearts, he wants to win. Not because the trophy is important but because ‘his Papa says so’. Or (sadly), it is because ‘Papa’s behavior is different when I come first and when I don’t’.

My reflection: We make kids aware of the fact that ‘winning is more important than losing’ as opposed to getting them to ‘Enjoy the moment – outcomes are what they are’. No wonder then, that in later life, they fall prey to competitive pressures – they have lost the joys of the journey and only the destination matters. Now as parents, this does raise lots of questions around ‘is it wrong to push for excellence’ and ‘mere competing does not make kids tough for the eventual big-bad world out there, ‘improvement is critical – hence criticism is important so that the kids know what to improve on’

Several years back, a friend proudly told me his strategy to push his kid – whenever the daughter would come home with her grades, he would just question her WHY. For example, if she came back with an A, he would ask, “Why not A+?” If she came back with an A+, his question was “Why not first 5 in class?”. If she came first in school, his question was, “Why not first across schools?”. He felt he was constantly pushing his daughter towards becoming a better version of herself. Few years later, I heard the news that his daughter tried to commit suicide after she had gotten through her medical entrance. Reason – she had not scored high enough to get into the ‘most prestigious branch of medicine at the most prestigious institute’ but could only get the ‘2^nd best branch at the most prestigious institute’. She felt like a failure in her own eyes since that’s what her father had conditioned her into – NEVER BE SATISFIED, KEEP TRYING HARDER…. BUT TO WHAT END