Competition! This is one big question: does our child need competition? Yes, he does. But, if we talk about competition in common way, my son won’t have the chance to competition in this remote area.

Why children need to compete?
To compete is to strive against another or others to win or to gain superiority. Since he was born, a man faced competition. For example, competition against his sibling to gain parent’s attention, competition with father to go to the bathroom in the morning, etc. Competition is a way to survive. So, why do we afraid of children’s competition? If children can compete in a good way, they can get what they want to have, and also they will build good relationship with others. The adverse consequences of competition is hostility and fraud. We must teach children to avoid those consequences.

Most people think that competitions are about the race and contest. And many people refers about unfair competition when think about competition. Competition more than that. That’s why at the beginning I said that if we talk about competition in common way, my son won’t get any chance! Whereas he need to learn to compete in a fair way.

I only have one child, and we are living in a remote area, that makes us lack of competition if only about race and contest. Ok, my son can compete through online competition, but I consider it doesn’t enough, he must meet with his opponent to better learn about the characters of his opponent, this is one important learning of a competition. The solution is: I should be his opponent and compete with him!

But how? What kind of competition that we have together?
I ask him to enroll at a course about astrobiology, it is a learning subject that he like. And I enroll too! We are compete in the class!

Learning at his astrobiology class

Our competition not only teach my son how to win, he also learn about his opponent’s character and how to beat me. He will learn about strategic thinking. Me neither, I’m not let him win easily, because I like to make him learn. I add the difficulty level every time he win. We discuss every progress that he made and never forgot to have fun. And of course, we will develop this competition learning at the next chance with others, not me. I only be his sparring partner now, not his real competition.

Now, when I write this, we are still compete each other in astrobiology class. I want to be more than a mother to my son, but also a good friend and teacher, that’s why I want to be his opponent in our competition.

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