Have you ever watched highly competitive sports with your kids? Let's talk about the kinds of messages our kids get from these games.

Many years ago, I coached high school football, and I still do a lot of work with college and professional athletes. Now it's always been clear to me, and I always tried to make it clear to the kids I coached, that the point of competition is to bring out the best in us. It's great to win, but for every winner there's a loser, and sports isn't about always being the winner. It's about playing the game to the best of your ability. 

However, sometimes the message that comes across the media, when you watch highly competitive sports, is, "It's not how you play the game, it's whether or not you get a gold medal that counts." Next time you are watching a "games" event, listen to how many times the broadcasters refer to the "medal count".

I'm concerned about kids who seem to have their whole identities tied up with whether or not they win. I applaud the rock-solid self-esteem of people like Kent Ferguson, who barely made it into the diving finals in the Olympics in Barcelona years ago. He said, "I'm just as good a guy if I didn't make the finals as if I were in them." 

That's the lesson our kids need to learn from competitive sports. It's not if you win. It's not even how you play. It is how you value yourself and what you learn when the game is over that really counts.