The Competitive Spirit...

My son is sooooo competitive. He's not even 5 years old & I hear all the time how he's smarter than me, he faster than me, he's stronger than me.

Today I told him there were many things I could do that he & his Daddy couldn't do: I told him I could take one look at either of their faces & know when they're lying & a lot of the time I can even tell exactly what they're thinking just by looking at them. He thinks his Daddy knows a lot more about everything than I do & I try not to squash that belief either.

Many times I've asked him to quit being so competitive with me but I have not been specific. I don't want to kill his competitive spirit.

I have, however, been specific on several occasions so he understands that competition is not always good.

He has a friend that's a few weeks older than he is but is quite a bit smaller than he is & he mentioned to me how he was bigger. I explained to him that was not a nice thing to say & that his friend would never tell him that he was older than my son is. My son is sensitive about the few weeks age difference & his friend is sensitive about the size difference.

My son was comparing the size of our house to my parents' house, saying ours' was bigger, & the hubby & I did not think that was appropriate either. We explained to him that the size of someones house does not matter & that is something we don't talk about.

He learned that lesson because my parents were bringing him home one day & my Mom said to him "what a beautiful house you have" as they were pulling into the driveway. My son said, "ssshhh, Grandma, we don't talk about that."

It's a competitive world. How do you keep them prepared but not obnoxiously competitive?

I am competitive to an extent. I don't care if I win, I just have to be satisfied with my results. If someone has more than me or does better, that's not enough to upset me, but if I'm not achieving what I think I am capable of compared to them, then I hunker down & get it handled. To me, it's not about winning, it's about being satisfied.

I'm sort of past competition. A few of my friends would tell you I'm competitive, but only about silly things. I'm happy for others' success as long as I'm having success, too, or their success is not interfering with mine. Like at work, if someone was selling in my territory, oh I'd come un-fricking-done.

How do you foster the competitive spirit in a child but not help it take over?

It's an interesting dilemma I struggle with myself. It's like a wild horse. You want to ride it cuz it gets you there fast & fun but you don't want it to get out of control.

Not my best simile, but you know what I mean.

Don't we all want our kids to be winners?

(That will be another blogspot about parents that don't want their kids doing better than they have. My parents always wanted, as do my hubby & I, more success for their children than they had.)