How to deal with losing?

My DD plays hard, very hard. She always wants extra practice and is calling plays and encouraging her teammates throughout the game. She does this for, both, softball and volleyball.

But, when the game ends, she lets it go immediately. After thier middle school volleyball team lost thier first district game and were out for the season, several kids were crying and hugging. Mine said, what's for dinner.

Should there be passion that carries past the final out? Is it ok or good to let it go that quick?

My daughter is very much the same way as yours. She is always out there trying to better herself. She plays hard and LOVES the game (whether it be softball or basketball). She doesn't like to lose, but doesn't cry over it either. I think different kids react to loses in different ways - DD occasionally will rehash a play or two, but generally speaking is fine to just move on. I don't think this makes her any less invested in the game...but maybe speaks to how she knows in the grand scheme of things, this one game does not determine her worth. I will say - she is not an emotional kid to begin with though. She avoids drama of any kind, whether it be relationship drama, crying at a movie, etc - which is more than fine with me!

Wow this is a 180 from where I thought it was going to go. What would you rather have? This? Or the kid who throws things and pouts for hours, while complaining about teammates, coaches, umpires and bad luck?

Nothing wrong with someone leaving it all on the field and then accepting the outcome.

DD is similar to yours. She is hyper competitive during the game but before or after the game she completely lets it go. I was always hyper competitive when playing anything. For me it started before the game and continued after the game. I think when our kids are different than us we tend to want to make them more like ourselves. The plus side for dd is that she doesn't seem to notice if she is leading the game off or batting down 1 run with 2 outs and 2 strikes in the bottom of the 7th inning.

KPower said:

My daughter is very much the same way as yours. She is always out there trying to better herself. She plays hard and LOVES the game (whether it be softball or basketball). She doesn't like to lose, but doesn't cry over it either. I think different kids react to loses in different ways - DD occasionally will rehash a play or two, but generally speaking is fine to just move on. I don't think this makes her any less invested in the game...but maybe speaks to how she knows in the grand scheme of things, this one game does not determine her worth. I will say - she is not an emotional kid to begin with though. She avoids drama of any kind, whether it be relationship drama, crying at a movie, etc - which is more than fine with me!

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Kpower you seriously just described my kid.


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KCPhoto said:

My DD plays hard, very hard. She always wants extra practice and is calling plays and encouraging her teammates throughout the game. She does this for, both, softball and volleyball.

But, when the game ends, she lets it go immediately. After thier middle school volleyball team lost thier first district game and were out for the season, several kids were crying and hugging. Mine said, what's for dinner.

Should there be passion that carries past the final out? Is it ok or good to let it go that quick?

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Depends on our definitions, but I would not describe the behavior of your daughter or others who are ''just like it'' in other posts to be competitive.

Just because you have a passion for something and really enjoy doing it and put forth great effort doesn't mean you're competitive about it.

Being competitive means that the outcome - winning and losing and where you stand in relation to someone else - means a lot to you. What you're describing doesn't sound like that. It sounds like passion for the sport or activity itself, not the competition. I know people who are passionate about gardens and cars and movies and social causes and all sorts of other things, and when they are talking about it or participating in it, they are totally engaged and alive. But that doesn't mean they are competitive about those things.

So I'd say you're daughter isn't overly competitive in the situation that you are describing. She might be very competitive in other situations, even other softball situations.

Competitiveness isn't necessarily a good or bad thing, IMO. And I don't think you have to be overly competitive to be good at a sport, although it can surely help. But sometimes the person who is passionate about the sport and the process - but cares a little less about the outcome - can perform more optimally because she's less worried about losing.

My kid is used to losing. She has won way more team championships than I have my entire life. And she last lost a bunch too. I guess it comes in waves. Can't stand the cry baby losers. At this point, we focus on my DD's performance, and how she can continuously improve and tweak. Her team lost last night, she had a poor showing and she knew it. So what do we do? We go do some "feel good" front toss to get her out of the funk. We are going to lose some more next week!!!

My DD is very competitive during the game. She's the kid who's the first one on the field, always hustles, plays all out, and can't understand why anyone would play a sport and not give it her all. But her competitive drive relates mostly to herself. Can she beat her top speed, make the diving catch, hit the homerun. She wants to win, but more than that she wants to be her best, and continue to beat her best. When her team wins, she's happy. But losses roll off her. She's definitely more passionate about playing the sport and playing her best than she is about winning.

It is a game pf short memory, after all, at the end of a tournament, there is one team that wins- everyone else loses

I've seen all sorts.

DD 1's best friend in softball days acted exactly the same after a strikeout and a grand slam. I am serious. She laughed them both off. She practiced hard, but wasn't super competitive.
DD 1 really didn't like losing, though. Took all the fun out of it for her. In the last year she played softball, she played a fall league, she played two games in a fall tournament (before getting rained out) and she played a year of HS softball on her freshman team. Grand total of 2 wins and all the other games losses, and that may have been a big factor in DD 1 quitting softball.

DD 3 gets really upset after a loss, much more so if she was the losing pitcher. One time her team tied for 3rd in a tournament, and she had 16 scoreless innings pitching to start the tournament. After losing 7-6 in the last game, she was upset. I told her she would've been happy before the tournament to come in 3rd. She said: "You are trying to cheer me up. You're failing." After a snow-cone she was a bit better.
What really gets DD 3 upset is when her team loses their last bracket game in a tournament, and other girls say things like "It's better this way, I'm tired and I want to go home." That sticks in her craw for a long time.