Competition and Play

Competition is Part of Life and Play is Part of Life
Team C
BCOM/275
July 8, 2013
Stephen Fant

It is important to set the foundation of competitiveness in a child at the early stages of their childhood. The reason is because there is no running or hiding from youth competition. They will learn to be competitive from an early age. They will compete from toddlers and forward to compete in the classroom and in youth sports. In the classroom the children will compete against themselves, classmates and their state elementary curriculum to achieve A’s and B’s. In youth sports they will compete against other youth opponents, and try to outperform and win their respected sport trophy. As stated in North Carolina State University’s article on Children & Competition, competition can encourage growth and push a child to excel. They will benefit as they learn their abilities and limitations. But overall, competition in life will teach the child the most important lesson in life, it will teach them failure. At some point in their young life, they will fail. Facing failure will bring out the individuals character as to how they will overcome this failure. This outlook of failure and how to overcome it can transfer into their adult life. Competition is part of life because a child will fail, from failure they will overcome, they will learn and become wiser, they will set goals, which will be all the tools and problem solving skills, that they will need when they face the harsh and competitive adult world. Playing is also a very important part in a youths and adult’s life. All types of play are important, whether it be creative, imaginative, and exploring playing. The reason being is it balances a child and adults life, physically and mentally. Which is the most important aspect in life. Whether it is a child or an adult if you do not play, a person will develop stress, stress that is built up, could and will kill a person. With that being said, playing is the difference between life and death for anyone. When someone is all work and no play, the person stress levels are through the roof, and they are a heart attack waiting to happen. The lack of having a easy going play session can cause physical and emotional stress. In the world there are a lot of children and adults that get caught up in work and school, and have no time for play, and unfortunately those are those people who die at a very young age. For example, I have classmates who are 30 years old, but they look 50 years old, because they don’t take time away from work to spend time playing or having fun. When you look back at their childhood, they didn’t play either and now that they are adults, not playing affects them tremendously.

Reference:
Competitive Edge. (2012). Retrieved from https://www.competitivedge.com/parentscoaches-guides-13-steps-being-winning-parent

Richtel, Matt. "The Competing Views on Competition." The New York Times [New York City] 11 Oct. 2012: n. pag. Print.

Johnson, Cynthia E. "Children & Competition." Children & Competition HE.404 (1993): n. pag. North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service. Web. 5 July 2013.