Elisabeth McKay

We want to reinforce contribution over competition.

But having said that, they're also from a parenting perspective, it's really important to teach your kid how to push themselves and how to commit and see something through the struggle.

But one of the things you'll hear me say for those of you that are in break, and it's one of our parenting keystones, is that it's very critical to teach your kid how to

measure reality accurately, right?

Like, did I put in enough effort?

Was this enough to win?

Instead of, let's say, your kid gets second place, you just go on a whole tirade about how you were actually better than them.

Like, well, you got second place.

Why would you do that?

So it's better to teach your kid how to accurately self-measure.

But paired with that,

I firmly believe that spontaneous celebration of the child is critical.

So you have to be able to celebrate your child not tied to what they're doing, but just who they are.

But this can't be done in the context of emotional rescuing.

You can't, for this to fit the mold of what I'm talking about, your kid can't be in pain and then you spontaneously celebrate them.

That's not spontaneous.

That's emotional rescuing.

one of the things that i will do is i will just find a random moment when we're doing nothing they haven't done anything they're not in trouble and i will just go up to them and i'll grab their face and just speak life into them you're smart you're funny i'm so excited to be your mom being your mom is one of the best things that's ever happened to me i'm so proud of you right not tied to anything else that's spontaneous celebration of your child and when you do those things and you're not constantly pitting the siblings against each other or highlighting what somebody is good at or what parents think you're not good at it

doesn't start to breed jealousy you also need to help your children learn how to tolerate disappointment and in fact build up as many opportunities to delay gratification as possible even if my kid is asking for apple juice or a snack i'll always intentionally say i'll get that for you in a few minutes sometimes they forget they even wanted it because really their brain was reaching for a snack because they were bored and now their boredom's gone away so they're not thinking about the snack

Or let's say in five minutes they really do want that.