Members of the 2013 Millbury Little League 8-year-old All-Star team, who finished the year-end tournament with a 2-2 record after losing to Grafton in a walk-off nail-biter on July 13, 2013.
Along with most other towns, Millbury as a sports community has seemingly gone through the stages of:
But in reality, kids emulate the sports stars and teams they see on TV. Adults may say "we're not keeping score" but guess who is? Yup, they know the score of their own games and they know who "won" and who "lost." Adults are not fooling the kids, we're just fooling ourselves.
Regardless of which side of things you find yourself (or your child) on in a given situation, I hope we're all learning that it is important for kids in our community to be acknowledged in a meaningful way for their successes, just as it is critical to emphasize good behavior and not just punish them for the bad!
But what about the majority of the times, when your youngster is not included that time around? As I can attest, he will be sad, but he will also get over it and be pushed to find what he enjoys and excels at, which is really what we want in the first place. Just as she was sad when the Bruins lost in the Stanley Cup finals or when he was punished for doing something wrong, he/she got over it and is probably better for it.
I really encourage this short-term-loss, long-term-gain type of thinking and I hope we as a community will continue to do more of it.
So when it is their turn to be in the spotlight for their achievements - will they be excited about it? What do you think!?!?
