What Happens When You Compete with Your Child?

…Ok this blog is not about competing against your child in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu - something most of us will never do. I want to look at what happens when you enter a competition together, and highlight the benefits of competing in Jiu-Jitsu alongside your child.

My first competition was a nerve-wracking experience from the start – as you would expect. In fact, wracking the nerves is kind of the point. Putting myself under a new kind of pressure, seeing how I would respond to a challenge I had never experienced before, was the main reason I had decided to compete. The venue was a couple of hours away so I stayed over with friends, travelling in the morning in an unfamiliar city. I was fighting in a higher weight class against bigger opponents. I was overwhelmed with thoughts that I would forget all my Jiu-Jitsu and make a fool of myself. And embarrass my teammates. And bring shame to my professor (not that I was catastrophising…)

And then a couple of weeks before the event my 12 year old suddenly said “I think I’ll compete too.”

Should They Compete?

It’s a great idea to follow your kid’s cues when it comes to competing. Forcing them when they’re not keen is likely to stop them enjoying training and could lead to stress and burnout. It can also seriously undermine your relationship with them if they think you’re not listening to them. The converse is also true – when your kid expresses an interest in competing, it’s great to be able to run with it. Young people want to compete for a huge variety of reasons but in the best cases it may be a sign that they’re feeling secure enough to risk losing, curious about the new experience, and eager to challenge themselves.

So of course I wanted to celebrate the fact that my son was confidently putting himself forward. But I uttered a selfish silent groan that it had to be now, during my first competition. It essentially tripled my nerves, as the tension and anxiety you feel around your child’s experience is often more extreme than around your own. But in the end I knew letting him ride the wave of his enthusiasm was important. After all, who knew when the opportunity might come again?

Relationship Benefits

The first benefit of having the kid along for the journey was that it was just more fun. So much of what we do as parents involves things the child hasn’t chosen – getting them to school, to see family, enforcing routines and boundaries. When we spend time together on our child’s terms, they can truly be themselves, let their guard down and just have fun.

Secondly, working on an activity together gives the opportunity for purposeful bonding. This is much harder when we’re focused on trying to have a meaningful chat, finding out what’s wrong, getting them to tell us about themselves. I don’t know many teenagers who respond well to direct questioning about their lives. It’s much easier to build a relationship as a result of a shared project – little topics of conversation come up naturally and give us glimpses into each other’s lives.

This leads to a third point. When the chosen shared activity is competing, you’re both facing a high-pressure task in an intense environment. You’re facing similar emotional experiences but they’re not the main focus of what you’re doing. So closeness happens as a by-product of the shared experience: you can see each other’s point of view because you’re in a similar position.

Learning from Your Child

One huge benefit to competing alongside other people, whether they’re teammates, friends or family, is that we can show each other better ways of dealing with the difficulties and pressures. Teammates have taught me it’s ok to fail, to put yourself forward, to take a break from competing, to compete even when you’re not that confident in your skills, and to put your headphones on and

ignore everyone when it’s time to get into the zone.

My child has taught me that you don’t have to be anxious about your performance; you don’t have to let nerves control you; a competition day is a good day no matter what the outcome; and booking your next comp is an excellent response to defeat!

So we can benefit from the lessons our kids teach us. But more importantly great things can happen when our child sees that we value their perspective and are really prepared to learn from them.

Learning from Teaching

Perhaps the most important thing I’ve got from competing alongside my son is having to listen to what I say to him. We often speak to ourselves much more harshly than to friends and family. I save my words of encouragement for loved ones. But when I tell my son he’s being brave and resourceful, helping himself and developing, choosing good challenges – I have to recognise I’m doing those things too. On one occasion he didn’t want to wear a medal he had won by default. I explained to him that small numbers in a category indicate greater challenges to participation for those people, so he could wear his default medal with pride. “Why aren’t you wearing yours then?” Yep. Kid got me, and I got a little bit better at practising what I preach.

Managing Emotions

Better self-talk is part of managing our emotions, which is vital role modelling for our children. Better levels of self-regulation are linked with better outcomes in every area of life. When your child sees you feeling nervous and doing the difficult thing anyway, channelling your adrenaline for a purpose, being gracious in defeat or victory – they are learning to acknowledge their feelings and not to be overpowered by them.

Managing our children’s emotions and their impact on us is one of the toughest challenges for many parents. Competing alongside your child means you have to face this head-on. Feeling anxious for your child is natural but in competition you feel very conscious that you don’t want to put that feeling on them – it’s a burden they will carry into their fight, weighing them down. It’s not that you learn to care less about your child’s feelings, but you see them as separate from your own. You can help them to be well-rested, well-fuelled, keep things in perspective – but you’re forced to recognise that ultimately they have to fight their own battles, both on and off the mat. And they learn that – with your support – they can.