Baseball begins this weekend for my son and me, his coach. This is his last year in the league, and he made his goals clear.

Me: What are you thinking about for the upcoming season?

Son: We have to win a championship.

Me: Well, every team wants to win, and only one will. I mean I want to and everything, but to say we have to…

Son: No. If we don’t win, it’s a fail. It’s our final year, and we haven’t won yet. So, it has to be this year.

So baseball wasn’t about the time we spent together. It wasn’t about him getting better as a player. It wasn’t about him getting exercise. It wasn’t about him getting to be part of a team.

I’ll be honest. The answer stung a little bit. My son is obsessed with winning, and nothing else matters. What kind of child are my wife and I raising?

But then I thought about it.

Was I that competitive?

Ummm, well, yeah. I am or at least I was that competitive. (Maybe I still am in some ways but that’s another story.) When I was in Little League, all I wanted was to play and win the championship.

When I was playing ball, I was on one championship team. I was 10 years old, and I didn’t get to play much that year. The coach played his son and his son’s friends more than the rest of us.

I played outfield primarily, and the ball only got out there a few times a game. Once during practice, I had a rock catch with a friend of mine, a fellow outfielder. No one noticed.

Despite my relative inactivity, I still have a few memories of that team. We were the Giants, and we wore purple jerseys. The friend I had a catch with was named Mike. We rarely talked after the season ended.

When I was 12, my basketball team made it to the finals. We started the year poorly – losing our first few games. Then, there was a long strike involving the schools, and the league was halted.

When the league started up again after the strike, only seven of our 11 players returned. Those of us who returned got to play a lot. And we started winning and laughing.

I could give you a breakdown of the championship game – go all Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and TNT on you – but I’ll spare you the details.

While I can’t remember the name of the team or the color of our shirts (I might have a picture somewhere), the memory of that team and how we bonded still makes me smile.

Sure, I want my son and his teammates to be competitive and experience a championship. Having such an experience is special. So, along with my fellow coaches, we’ll try to put the players in the best position to succeed.

However, it will be the same balancing act as past years, one between winning and helping the boys improve their skills.  When the only focus is winning, something is lost.

I hope my son can appreciate that as much fun as winning is, coming together as a team is even more special.

Maybe, this kind of thinking only happens with time, perspective and maturity. Either way, I hope my son and the rest of the team enjoy the season and, one day, will look back upon it fondly.

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This blog post is part of the #NoDadAlone campaign. Fathering Together/City Dads Group, the National At-Home Dad Network, and Fathers Eve are joining forces to amplify messages that help dads recognize we are not alone! Follow #NoDadAlone on Instagram, and learn more at NoDadAlone.com.

A version of this first appeared on Me, Myself and Kids. It first ran here in 2017 and has since been updated. “Competitive children” photo by Eduardo Balderas on Unsplash.

Editor’s Note: We’re digging into our ample archives to find some great articles you might have missed over the years. This one on teaching generosity to your child comes from 2017.

You don’t have to look too far to see a world where people are selfish and lack the socialization to show concern for others. People often put themselves before community interests. It’s disappointing, to say the least, especially since we spend whole chunks of our kids’ childhood trying to give them the opposite values by teaching generosity, kindness and humility.

Preschool and early elementary school are — as author Jerisha Parker Gordon notes in The New York Times about the flip side of teaching her daughter to always be nice — obsessed with sharing, taking turns and learning cooperation. Yet, it’s a skill set in very short supply among adults. What are we to do?

For young kids, this contradiction can be confusing. Not only in the way that the grown-up world actually operates but also in their own social world. There, we teach kids to sometimes sacrifice their own justified preferences and independence for the sake of the group, however, how often do the adults they see and hear do the same? Neither approach is — strictly speaking — correct. It’s not always about the group and it’s not always about the individual. Our culture is filled with the push-pull of that duality on a daily basis.

I’ve noticed lately that I’m extremely proud of my kids when they stand up for themselves. It’s a function of multiple inputs: the rise of helicopter parenting that we’re working against, my own sheepish personality tendencies, and our constant encouragement to socialize. When they step up and assert their own dominance in an appropriate situation, it sends a chill of happiness down my spine because it means we’re raising well-rounded, aware kids.

Generosity lessons vs. life lessons

The dynamic is different for each of my children, though. 

For my son, as a “stereotypical” little boy, it’s often working against a physically active mentality where simply asking him to keep his body and mouth calm and quiet is a major task. Slowing him down to show empathy or let others go first is a major accomplishment.

For my daughter, her struggles to be generous in spirit often come from having her desires thwarted or a lack of inclusion hurting her feelings. As frustrating as it sometimes gets, her ability to speak up for herself is something I don’t want to go away. When someone cuts in line in front of her, she’s completely right to tell them it was her turn first. The trick is getting her to channel this when maybe it’s not so clear-cut that she’s justified.

I suppose, in the big picture, it’s better to create overly generous kids given what we’re working against as a society. But no matter what kind of generosity we hope they take everywhere with them, being equipped for the nasties out there is our duty as parents as well. The ungenerous can neither get them down nor become their obsession. Find like-minded people, lead by example, and ignore the haters. That’s a difficult lesson to learn in the tiny world of school and friends where we wish to be liked by all and win over even the harshest critic.

Generosity coupled with independence is a hard lesson for most adults. I always joke, politically, that people need to go back to kindergarten and learn the basic concepts. At the other end, we have kindergarten students who are working on sharing and equality just fine — but many of these kids need a dose of confidence and skills for working through their complicated feelings about socialization.

The best way we can show them how to navigate the waters is to do it ourselves. Our kids are constantly watching us for examples. Let’s be the kind-but-firm people they need.

A version of Teaching Generosity first appeared on Newfangled Dad. Photo: © oksix/ Adobe Stock.

There can be few things more difficult to accept than being outwitted by your children. It’s not just their incessant questions, which are capable of exposing the depth of my ignorance, but it’s also finding myself running out of logical explanations for my behavior.

In my exhaustion or frustration, I often flippantly make rules or broad proclamations. I imagine all parents are guilty of this. The reason why we can’t play endless imaginary games is often unsatisfactory to our kids, and we are forced to give SOME reason. If that reason doesn’t measure up, we’re going to hear about it.

Yeah, I know I should be proud of the sharp minds banging around my kids’ thick skulls, and I am. But do they have to be THIS sharp so soon? I’m in my 40s. My cognitive decline is a genetic certainty. As my eyesight fails me, my hair gets thinner, and my memory fades faster than my faith in humanity, my children’s powers grow stronger. I’m Odin. I’ve dropped a hammer, and I can’t pick it up. But my 5-year-old son can, and he’s coming out swinging.

I’m learning a lot from these cerebral interactions with my children, ages 3, 5 and 7. I’m definitely learning about kids and how quickly their minds are gaining mutant superpowers, but more importantly, I’m learning a lot about myself, and more broadly, about humanity.

The most illuminating lesson: humans suck at changing their minds.

Never surrender and never truly win

Sometimes, I just don’t want to do something, and sometimes I just don’t want my kids to do something else. I don’t always have a good reason, and my kids, like TV lawyer Saul Goodman, cross-examine me with a rigor I’m incapable of matching. Usually, they are right to question my motives. Sometimes I’m just being lazy. Maybe I’m being stubborn and refusing to change a rule that doesn’t make sense. I’m also guilty of barking out orders just because I’m too tired to do anything else. While there are excusable moments of parental imperative, for the most part, I should just relent and do the unthinkable — change my mind.

We see this in endless debates on social media. People will make ignorant statements of nonsense, and when confronted with irrefutable proof they are wrong, they dig their heels in deep and keep on spewing nonsense. I’m not talking about ideological debates here. Don’t go political on me. I mean something simple like getting a random, easily Googleable sports fact wrong. The proof of their ignorance can be right there in front of them, and they won’t simply say, “Oopsie. I didn’t know that.” No. They fight. They argue. They make excuses, and you know what? I do the same damn thing when my kids have me dead to rights.

I’m such a hypocrite. I’ll keep arguing back. I’ll keep pushing against their logical and youthful wisdom. No part of me wants to admit they are right, that my rule was unfair or silly, and that I should apologize and make it right. Nope. Never. I’ll die on this hill right here: BECAUSE I SAID SO!

To change one’s mind is a gift for all

What am I teaching them at this moment? What sort of human am I raising? I’m modeling the behavior we now see played out all over the news. Politicians with no new ideas, no leadership abilities, just an unshakable resolve to plow ahead. We see this in CEOs with stupid proclamations not rooted in reality. We see this with religious zealots unwilling to accept any other way of life than the one foretold in their chosen sacred book. This spirit of never changing our minds permeates all of humanity. It feels inescapable. This stubborn mind virus is the real pandemic, and I have the cure.

When your kids are right, change your mind! When your kids have outwitted you, or exposed your hypocrisy, admit you’re wrong. Apologize. Change your mind.

Listen, you can come up with a dozen scenarios when you shouldn’t do this. And, of course, there are times when a little razzle-dazzle with the truth is necessary, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I mean when they have you, when they really have shown you that you’re wrong, don’t let pride hold you back. Don’t just forge ahead as if your logic is unassailable and your authority absolute. Show them grace and love, and show them how to be reasonable human beings. Teach them compromise isn’t a failure.

And if I haven’t convinced you how important this is, do it anyway. Why? BECAUSE I SAID SO!

Change your mind parent photo: © IRStone / Adobe Stock.

I’ve seen this before – a half-assed tryout, making the track team and, suddenly, floating the idea wanting to quit before the second practice. Yes, my seventh grader, Lynden, hopes that his subtle hints about leaving the school track team will garner my support to do so. He must not know I value the act of participating more than he does.

“Dad, track is boring,” he mentioned in passing the morning after tryouts.

I said nothing and picked him up from practice later that day.

That evening, on the van ride home, Lynden escalated the quitting chatter, “With everything else going on, track is gonna get in the way of soccer.”

Again, I remained quiet and stoic – taking note of his hope for my agreement wane.

By day three, Lynden resorted to feigning illness to avoid track practice, “Dad, I have a headache. There is no way I to go to track and soccer tonight.”

I’d had enough.

“Lynden, you’re not quitting the team. Nope.”

He shot back, “Why does it matter? You’re not out any money – it’s just the school track team! I’m not even good.”

Sparing him another “it’s not the act, but the principle at work” talk, I kept it simple, saying, “Yes, you’re busy. Yes, you’ll be tired from running at track practice before soccer. But you tried out and took a spot that someone else could have earned. That means you’re sticking it out. Tough. You’re on the team for the season so you better learn to like it.”

Request denied.

The truth is, Lynden quitting the team didn’t have me as annoyed as his nonchalant attitude about being on the squad in the first place.

As I thought about Lynden’s logic, I came around to the idea that he wasn’t technically wrong. The school track team was a free, throw-in for his normal, more expensive, more serious, more inconvenient-to-the-family team activities. This rationale, though, clearly does not value participation as a valuable use of his time. He isn’t alone in the line of thinking, I see the numbers of kids on the field at school reducing universally.

As the act of trying new activities at school has given way to paying-to-play, the quality of middle school sports have suffered. My family has a front row seat to witnessing the plight of the school team fueled by an invasion of uber-serious, uber-expense “travel” teams that do little to fortify friendships and do far too much to allow parents to live vicariously through their exhausted young athletes.

I began unpacking Lynden’s mentality as follows:

• School sports are free and, therefore, not as valuable as the other (ie: higher priced) options.
• School sports are less valuable, so my commitment to the team doesn’t matter.
• Commitment does not matter so quitting the team carries no repercussions.

Parents cannot allow this – I won’t. We must band together to stomp out these flames before they ignite the lacquer of the middle school gym’s floor. Worthwhile commitments must not be dependent on the financial cost of admission or perceived ability level. Having fun is worthwhile!

Maybe some of Lynden’s “quitting doesn’t matter” way of thinking can be traced back to the way parents have devalued the act of participating. The rush to disavow the “participation trophy mentality” may have inadvertently discouraged kids to try anything new. Our kids would rather sit out than entertain the idea of making an ass of themselves in front of classmates, friends and family by giving a new activity a shot.

But, not Lynden, not this time. By making him stick out the track season, I hope to change his view of what is important (and not) – and, potentially, test my own biases about the importance of participating.

Picking Lynden up after his fourth track practice, I explained to him my point of view — that his bellyaching to quit the track team was about something bigger to me. Sure, the most obvious lesson was about perseverance and integrity. Less obvious, though, are lessons about value – looking for intrinsic worth through friendships and owning the courage to step outside of a comfortable zone. These lessons are about placing more value on systems that care little about the quality of play relative to the qualities developed by simply taking part. These lessons require participation.

Kids cannot quit on school activities. Let’s tell our kids that trying is OK. In fact, participation is what it’s all about – absent the trophy, of course.

Photo: ©Anneke / Adobe Stock.

You know Chad. Every business in America has one.

Chad is the nice-looking, smiley, firm-hand-shaking, future C-level executive-to-be at your office. Chad is smart, but more than that, he has that “it” factor that propels him to the front of any promotion process. When you think about Chad, he seems more accomplished than pragmatically productive.

I am no Chad. I tried but have fallen short. I’m OK with it, mostly because after my wife and I started having kids, I realized I could set out to provide some lucky corporation a future Chad of my making. Yes, I’d raise my kids to be witty, quick, effective communicators who weren’t afraid of the big stage or bright lights. They would be built to dazzle any high powered, future boardroom – just like Chad.

Fifteen years into this parenting thing, though, my kids are no Chads.

Not only are my kids are not exuding the skills required, COVID-related changes to corporate America have me thinking that the Chad I knew in my young career will require a makeover to sustain his seat at the top.

The company I work for, like many, has been closed its offices to in-person working since mid-March 2020. Working remotely has ushered in a different skill set required to collaborate. While I talk to communication with colleagues via the phone, email and daily Zoom meetings, we are far more isolated than before. I had better get used to the isolation as many workplaces may have employees permanently work remotely as they harvest the productivity gains of employees’ evergreen availability and the savings on office space costs.

While I enjoy this new work-from-anywhere phenomenon, Chads may not. After all, there are no golf outings for them to rub shoulders with other C-level guys. Fewer opportunities exist for them to deliver a rousing lecture about next quarter’s sales outlook. Gone is their chance to leverage their off-the-charts charisma to make an executive-level first physical impression for new employees. Corporate Chads have been relegated to working in the connected-but-disconnected world where, to my chagrin, my kids feel most comfortable.

Will a nerd rule in a remote work culture?

Chads might find it strange that my kids:

• Rarely communicate with friends outside of group chats
• Only try to impress each other by shooting meaningless selfies back-and-forth via SnapChat
• Find normal curiosity – like asking a teacher for clarity after class — a waste of their time
• Would rather perform a Google search than ask another human for assistance
• “Socialize” in the isolation of their rooms via gaming consoles with (mostly) strangers
• Place far more value on the result (i.e., the letter grade) than the process (learning a concept by understanding test materials)
• Have no idea of that the “it” factor is — only surmising that “it” must involve the number of followers one has on Instagram

Instead of lamenting my inability to mold my children into a Chad, maybe their nerd view of the world, way of communicating, and flexibility in handling a global pandemic will redefine the successful professional of the future.

Might this be a real life “Revenge of the Nerds”?

If there is existential risk for the traditional Chad, should parents stop badgering our kids about their lack of social skills? In a world that requires more technical prowess than intrapersonal skill, should we care about kids’ communicating via choppy texts, selfies and cartoon emojis?

While I see the balance of technical and social skills to be shifting, I’m not ready to write Chad’s eulogy just yet. I still place value on my kids’ ability to have healthy relationships with people around them. We shouldn’t take for granted that our kids know how to foster traditional friendships. They are not around each other much anymore. More than ever, I’m pushing hard for my children to stay involved in activities outside of school. After all, activities are the only time our children are without a connected device during their waking hours from middle school on.

I’m learning to turn my attention from building Chads to re-emphasizing the importance of befriending humans in the world of IBM Watson. I struggle, though, with helping provide appropriate balance between technology and social skills.

I want my kids to have good, deep friendships with people around them. I want my kids to navigate rooms of strangers. I want my kids to use technology to bring this vast world closer. I want them to be as happy in public arenas as in their bedroom sniping strangers on Fortnite.

I’ve come to the realization that my kids won’t be Chads. That might not be such a bad thing.

Maybe kids, in general, are nerdier now. That said, I’ll stop short of saying that nerd qualities – like perceived social isolation and lack of charisma – will prevent them from becoming a solid contributor in their chosen field of work. Our kids may be successful because of (not despite) the things we worry most about: lack of face-to-face connection, inability to speak publicly, and more interest in virtual relationships.

We are living in a “Revenge of the Nerds” re-boot – one making today’s nerd tomorrow’s Chad.

Nerd photo: © chomplearn_2001  / Adobe Stock.

One night recently at the dinner table, my wife said to me, “You know you’re the reason why the boys are the way they are.”

While I might have hoped this was general praise for their overall wonderfulness, I think what she was referring to specifically was their petty competitiveness.

As is often the case, our 4- and 6-year-old sons were enjoying their dinner with a side of brotherly bickering. School had recently started for both, and they were arguing over who had received more points from their teacher that day.

Our older son’s first-grade teacher uses an app to help parents track their child’s behavior. The children receive points for things like being on task and teamwork and can have points deducted for bad behavior. The teacher updates the app in real-time throughout the day. My younger son’s pre-K teacher has no such system, but that hasn’t stopped him from claiming he’s accumulated hundreds or millions of points per day.

Needless to say, I was immediately captivated by the app. The second day of school, I refreshed repeatedly, waiting for the point total to tick up. Four points for being on task before 11 a.m.? Yes!

I quickly realized, though, that there was one major problem. Without a point of reference, I had no way of knowing if, say, eight points in a day was a good total or not. In other words, I really needed a class leaderboard so I could see if my kid was dominating the competition. Otherwise, the whole points thing felt a bit empty. Kind of like playing tennis and only keeping count of your points and not your opponent’s.

I resisted the urge to message the teacher and ask where I could find the class leaderboard because I assumed that would be heavily frowned upon. Instead, I dropped a few hints to my son when the moment seemed right.

“So, do you see how many points you have while you’re at school?” I asked casually.

“Yeah,” he replied. “It’s projected on the board.”

“How is everyone else doing? Do they have a lot of points, too?”

“I think I probably have the most. I was kind of at the top of the list.”

I gave a subtle fist pump.

It was only later when my wife scolded me for trying to turn everything into a competition that I realized I was probably getting a little carried away. She had a, um, point

An arbitrary point system for a bunch of first graders is certainly not something to obsess over. No matter how appealing the instant gratification the app provides might seem, I really should save my energy for more important things like Little League, tiny tot soccer and under-8 tennis.

In all seriousness, there is a danger in our competitive and connected world of becoming fixated and obsessed with trivial matters. For example, businesses attempt to exploit our weaknesses every day. They prey on our need to compare ourselves to others, to prove that we belong, to believe that our wildest dreams are achievable.

Whether it’s the burst of adrenaline you get when one of your Instagram posts gets tons of likes or the shadow of depression that lurks when you see friends and family living seemingly perfect lives online, our technologies and the businesses that create them are continually pulling our emotional strings as if we were their marionettes.

Perhaps even more insidious, there are businesses that get cheap labor by gamifying their workplace. As a writer, I’ve come across this on many platforms. Companies often offer freelancers the opportunity to make their own schedules, get their work seen, build connections, develop new skills, and, very often, compete for compensation against other desperate writers. Like the classroom app, many of these platforms are brilliantly designed to appeal to our obsessive natures. Unlike the classroom app, most of them have leaderboards or contests or various forms of rankings, making them even more addictive for those of us with maniacally competitive tendencies. They share tricks and tendencies with the ubiquitous multi-level marketing systems that often clutter your social media timelines.

These businesses offer periodic hits of dopamine in the form of peppy digital notifications, head-to-head wins, and various contests and rewards. What they don’t typically offer is fair compensation, benefits, or a stable financial future of any kind. They get tons of great content from talented people by exploiting our obsessive tendencies, need for competition, and the sense of belonging and achievement that comes with “winning.”

I know this because I’ve participated on these platforms. I still do. And I’m borderline obsessive about it even though I know it’s a lot of smoke and mirrors. Human nature is a weird thing. But, it’s not just instinct. We’re often taught from an early age that if we just work hard, delay gratification, and compete to win, something better is just over the horizon. However, in the online freelance world that better thing often doesn’t come. Instead, if you’re not careful, you can spend years making a lot of money for other people.

Yes, there certainly is a darker side of competitive drive. Particularly when competition is increasingly presented to us in attractive, technologically sleek packages. When it comes to providing a model for my kids, it’s probably best that I keep that in mind.

Competition photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash