My Little Competitor

Austen is quite the competitor.  But he doesn't like to lose.  He makes a competition out of everything - who can get their pajamas on faster, who gets to the door first, who brushes their teeth first.  Never mind, how he acts when he's just playing your standard board games or sports.

He's also competitive with himself.  When he does spelling at home or school, you have to read him a list of words and you can't tell him what he gets right or wrong until all the words are read.  When you're done telling him the words to spell, you must check his work, giving him a check mark for all the ones he gets right and write the correct spelling of the word under the ones he gets wrong.  He's hard on himself when he misses often collapsing on the floor and pouting, but I tell him that's how you learn.

So we're trying to teach him that it's okay not to win all the time or to be perfect. Tom and I beat him in games just so he knows he can't win everytime. He's not going to be one of those kids on the sports fields who can't leave it on the field and cries at the end of every game he loses.

Being competitive is a good trait to have and I am glad he is competitive, I just want him to learn the art of losing gracefully too. So, we're starting now.