“It’s too hard; I can’t do it, I quit!”
These were the words from my 5-year-old daughter. We were playing Wii Sports Resort and she was playing the sword duel module. She was in a duel to knock the computer player off of the platform with a fake sword – she kept losing.
I said, “Quit? Why don’t you try again?”
She said, “It’s too hard. I won’t be able to do it, ever!”
I said, “If you quit, you will never win. Keep trying and you will make it.”
She had enough; she sat on the floor and asked me to play instead. I picked up the controller and picked another module to play – Ping Pong. I played it before; I liked it and I won last time – well not this time.
I tried again and said, “See. Daddy didn’t win and he isn’t giving up.”
No response from my daughter.
After another 3 defeats, I tried again. (Usually, I am pretty good at this, but this time I must have had something in my eye – yeah, that was it!)
Now my daughter was cheering for me to win. Another 2 defeats; guess what I did then? I tried again.
I won.
I said to my daughter, “See, I didn’t give up. I didn’t quit, I kept trying.”
She replied with, “I want to try now.”
She took the controller and proceeded to pick her fake sword game and try again.
She lost.
She tried again. She lost again. After 3 more times, she won.
She said, “I did it! I kept trying and I did it!”
My response, “Yes, see what happens when you keep trying? You will do it.”
So what is this all about?
I have been through many things in my life, some good and a lot not so good, but I don’t like to quit; I actually hate it. There were times I had to quit, but for good reasons – not because I didn’t want to do something.
I don’t want my children to come up against difficult things in their lives and just quit. I want them to keep trying and make things happen for themselves.
Now, I am not taking about winning at all costs, I am taking about just giving up and not even giving something a try. (I will touch on the winning at all costs discussion in another post.)
We all have things to overcome in our lives, some worse than others; I want to instill in my children that when things get hard, you keep trying – don’t quit, don’t give in to your fears or frustration.
Do you keep trying?
How do you encourage your children to keep trying?
Photo credit: Zanastardust
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I have had very similar experiences with my 4 year old son, and Yes, Wii Resorts. What I really dislike, is how at the end of the a Wii Resorts game, the losing “Mii” puts his head down, looks at the floor, shakes it in disbelief and looks like he is crying. I have actually seen my son duplicate that action! His favorite games are actually the Sword Duel Play, bowling, and basketball. The basketball Wii game has sparked an interest in the real sport which is awesome. I have went thru the similar dialogue with my son about “try, try, again.” I think the message got thru, because recently, when I told him that a certain stuffed animal would not fit in his back pack because it was too big, he told me “mom, if you keep trying, I bet you can do it.” He was right, it fit.
Hey Jackie!
Thanks for the comment.
Yeah, I am not too thrilled they portray the loosing Mii either. Very cool. My 5 year old daughter loves the sword Duel, frisbee and basketball. She loves the bowling on the old Wii Sport better though. She likes playing tennis on there too. She likes playing against me on Tennis on there and she wants me to teach her play tennis one day – I used to be semi-pro a LONG time ago. That’s very cool. Don’t you love it when they say things like that?