Helping Kids Handle Losing: “Coach, Our Plan Is Working.”

“Coach, our plan is working.”

She came over to me in the middle of class with a big smile on her face.

For the past couple of months, one of our younger athletes has been working on something that is genuinely hard for her: losing without letting the disappointment take over.

And when you’re little, losing can feel very big.

So we came up with a simple plan. When she feels herself getting too worked up, she can step away to the washroom for a few minutes, reset, and come back when she’s ready.

That’s it.

No complicated strategy. No expectation that she suddenly stop caring whether she wins or loses. Just something she can use when the feelings start getting bigger than the moment.

So when she looked at me and said, “Coach, our plan is working,” I knew exactly what she meant.

She wasn’t telling me she doesn’t get upset anymore.

She was telling me she’s starting to know what to do when she does.

That’s an important difference.

As adults, we’re often quick to make kids feel better. We explain, reassure, distract, negotiate, or try to smooth over the disappointment.

But the goal can’t always be to remove the hard feeling.

Sometimes the better lesson is: You can feel this, you can work through it, and you’ll be okay.

She’s still learning how to lose. How to be frustrated. How to recover when something doesn’t go the way she hoped.

Those are not small skills.

Progress with kids doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it’s helping them find a strategy, then watching them realize that they can actually use it when they need it.

And I think that’s one of the best kinds of confidence we can help kids build:

Not the confidence to always win, but the confidence to know they’ll be okay when they lose.