It’s time over-protective parents gave children a reality check

As a kid at school, my athletic ability was on a par with what it is today — not very good.

I attended a small primary school and numbers in the classes were small.

In Year 7 there were only three girls in the class and for whatever reason, our sports events were all divided into girls and boys.

My common response to people’s question about where I came in a race was third.

I didn’t feel any need to tell them there were only three in the race! I’ve now decided I was completely and utterly robbed by coming third in every race/event and that I should be compensated by having every person who won those races stripped of their medals/trophies/apples — whatever they won.

How can it possibly be fair that I always lost and they always won?

Now if you think I’m talking a lot of rubbish, and yes you’re right I am, imagine the heartache of the young football team in Perth who were recently robbed of their premiership points because they had won too many games and the other team, same age group but different league, hadn’t won any.

Imagine the uproar of this happening at an AFL level of football or a cricket Ashes match or with the Olympic swimming team.

It isn’t right for adults and it sure as hell isn’t right for kids.

If you have the better team and you are good enough to win, so be it.

No one likes to always be on the losing side, but it’s part of life and sometimes you just have to take the lousy with the good. Sure, the kids will be disheartened and some may even want to give up, but that is no reason to punish those who are winning.

In every aspect of life there are winners and losers.

The sooner we stop spoon-feeding children the myth that everyone can win, everyone can have a trophy, everyone can be a star and let them face the reality that sometimes you just have to tough it out, the better.

As a parent, if my child wanted to leave a team simply because they weren’t winning, I would be very disappointed and would have a serious discussion with them about things such as team loyalty, perseverance and not giving up.

Forget the reality TV shows.

Let’s put some reality back into kids’ lives.