When friendship comes in the way of the pursuit of excellence
When friendship comes in the way of the pursuit of excellence
My 13-year-old daughter is a happy, confident child. She has been playing tennis since she was 5. She has always loved it and we have never pushed her. Today she is among the top three in her age group in our city. She trains every day with a batch of about 12 children, who are friends and competitors—healthily so. However, one child has stopped talking to my daughter after she won a state-level competition and qualified for the nationals. My daughter has tried to re-establish their old camaraderie but the other child does not respond—even her mother behaves coldly. Now my daughter has begun to be afraid of encountering this child, who goes out of her way to snub her. She is tense and stressed at the thought of going for tennis lessons. I cannot see my daughter allowing someone to break her down like this, because in recent competitions it has seemed as if she is giving up even before she walks on to the court. How do we handle this situation?
Right now, forced to face an unpleasant choice between excelling and losing a friend, your child has veered towards the emotional decision of letting the tennis go and holding on to the friend. Excelling and winning at her age is abstract, a hurt and angry friend is concrete.
First, you should acknowledge and admire her emotions, of valuing her friendship in this situation. However, you (or a counsellor; perhaps her coach could play that role?) need to guide her to understand that it is not her excelling, but her friend’s reaction to it, that is the problem here.
Also read | Gouri Dange ’s earlier columns
Gouri Dange is the author of ABCs of Parenting.
Write to Gouri at learningcurve@livemint.com
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