Why Keeping Score Matters

"Do you think it's important to keep score in youth soccer games?" That was the question posed to me in the elevator the other day by a friend of mine visiting from out of town. We had been talking about the importance of kids' involvement in sports teams or other social activities when he popped the question about keeping score.

Is it important to keep score or should everyone be a winner? Great question, with ramifications far beyond youth sports.

Keeping score is vitally important; not so much for the winners, but for the losers. Every important lesson I've learned in life has been the result of losing. Losing at sports, failing a test, failing in business, losing friendships; all these losses have taught me lessons of humility, integrity, duty, love, sacrifice, setting proper expectations, having uncomfortable conversations sooner rather than later, how to be a better friend, a better business partner, a better brother a better husband, and a better person. Heck, losing even taught me to be a gracious winner. I shudder when I consider the person I would be today without those failures.

So, back to the question. "Why is keeping score important?" If we don't keep score, we rob children of the most precious of experiences, the experience of failure. If you buy into the idea that humans learn through failing, you should view failure as something to be cherished, not avoided. If kids don't have the opportunity to fail and to learn that failure isn't the end of the world; that failure is actually the key to eventual success, then they turn into adults who are so afraid of failure that they don't actually live.

Braveheart said it best, "Every man dies, not every man truly lives." Most men don't truly live because they're scared of losing; they're scared of chasing their dreams and passions with everything they have, and of coming up short. It's much safer to just not try.

I'm not sure exactly who first put forward the idea that failure is bad for a child's self esteem, but they are exactly wrong. What's bad for a child's self esteem is to never be put in a position where failure was possible. What's bad for a child's self esteem is to be so coddled and insulated by their parents that they never gain the authentic self confidence that is earned by failing and trying again, and failing again, and trying again and finally succeeding.

Soon, your son or daughter is going to have an opportunity to fail; let them.


Take the lead,

Jeremiah