Ripping into a Child for Failing
Imagine giving your absolute best effort in a match. You commit to your game plan, you are mentally tough and you leave everything out there on the court. You come off sweaty and exhausted, but you have lost.
How fair would it be for your coach or your parents to rip into you for losing the match? Do you have direct control over winning or losing the match? It would be devastating to be told off for losing the match. Why? Because the outcome isn’t in your direct control. The opponent could have been bigger, stronger, higher ranked and more experienced. They could have just played better than you on the day. If they were to hold you accountable for something that you have no direct control over, they would be setting you up for failure.
Yet, how many authority figures do this? They praise outcomes instead of performances. They encourage winning over effort. Yet do they know that what they’re actually reinforcing in the child is an ego-orientated way of thinking which is detrimental to their future performances and career success. Why is it that feedback is given dependent on things that are out of our control?
Feedback and reflection should be based on the things that are directly in a player’s control and which have been decided as objectives before the match. Things like effort levels, energy levels, footwork, game plan, resilience and decision making. When these things that are in a players control are poorly performed then it is totally right to highlight the specific area that was done poorly. The player can take absolute responsibility to rectify and correct that shortcoming in the future. In fact, it is empowering to take responsibility for those things over which we have direct control. However, choosing to pick holes in performances purely because a player lost is completely the wrong approach because it only has a negative impact on their mentality and performances in the long run.
Feedback based on the outcome will lead to the player placing importance on winning and losing, and not on the things that are in their control. This outcome (ego-orientated) mindset will lead to nervousness, anxiety and tense performances in the future which will ultimately cause poor performances.
In an ideal world, a player should not be ecstatic about a win or miserable about a loss. They should evaluate matches based on performance objectives and not on outcome. Ideally, a child should be equally happy with a good performance despite the result. Obviously that’s a hard mentality to achieve because everyone wants to succeed in life, no one really wants to lose, but this is only magnified if the feedback is given purely based on outcome.
Legend basketball coach, John Wooden, praises his team based on their performances rather than their outcomes. He points out that his teams could win matches but perform very poorly, but they could also perform extremely well and leave it all out on the court, but lose the game. Therefore, he stresses the importance of feeding back based on performance and performer skills rather than outcome. This is coming from the most successful NCAA basketball coach in history.
