What a Lower School Dodgeball Tournament Taught Me About Helping Kids Handle Disappointment
The gym bleachers stuck to the back of my jeans, and my iced coffee had gone lukewarm an hour earlier when Mia’s 3rd grade dodgeball team made it to the final round. The air smelled like lemon floor wax and the orange slices the PTA set out by the door, and half the parent section was yelling so loud my ears rang. Mia was the last kid left on her court, braid fallen over one shoulder, neon pink knee pads slipped down her shins, staring down three bigger 4th graders who’d been talking trash all tournament about how 3rd graders couldn’t catch a ball if it was handed to them.
She dodged the first throw, the ball whizzing past her ear and hitting the wall behind her. She caught the second one clean, one hand out like she’d practiced a hundred times after dinner in our driveway, and the crowd roared when the first 4th grader walked off the court. The third throw came low, fast, and hit her right on the toe of her new white sneakers. She was out.
I stood up, already fumbling for my wallet, ready to tell her it was just a game, she’d done amazing, and I’d buy her the fancy mint chocolate chip ice cream she likes after school. Before I could climb down the bleachers, though, the PE teacher, Ms. Lopez, was already walking over to her. Mia’s shoulders were hunched all the way up to her ears, and she wouldn’t meet anyone’s eye when she walked off the court. When her best friend tried to tug her into a hug, she shrugged her off and plopped down on the end of the bench, staring at her scuffed sneakers.
Ms. Lopez didn’t kneel down and gush about how great she did. She didn’t tell her it was just a game. She just sat down next to her on the wooden bench, far enough that she wasn’t crowding her, and tapped her own sneaker against the floor once, same rhythm as Mia was tapping. “That last one stung, didn’t it?” she said. “You were so close to pulling that upset.”
That was it. Mia just nodded, and after a minute, mumbled that she’d practiced every night for a week because she wanted to prove the 4th graders wrong. Ms. Lopez just nodded back, said that made total sense, and left her to sit there while she called the next game. I sat back down on the bleachers, my ice cream plan already forgotten. I’d been doing this wrong this whole time.
After the tournament ended, I caught Ms. Lopez on her way out to her car, and we chatted for a few minutes. She’s been doing this annual tournament for 12 years, she said, and the most common mistake she sees adults make is brushing off kid disappointment like it doesn’t count. “It’s not just a game to them,” she said. “They put in the work, they care about beating the older kids, they want to win. Telling them it doesn’t matter just makes them think their hard work doesn’t matter, too.”
She told me the routine she reminds all the parent volunteers and new teachers of every year: if a kid is upset after a loss, first, don’t fix it right away. Name the feeling, don’t brush it off. Instead of “it’s okay,” say “that hurts right now, doesn’t it?” Instead of empty “you did great” that feels like a lie when they just lost, acknowledge the work they put in. Don’t force them to cheer up or be a good sport before they’ve had a chance to be sad. Most of the time, they just need two minutes to sit with the bad feeling before they’re ready to move on.
I tried that on the car ride home. Instead of leading with “it’s just a game, want ice cream?” I pulled out of the parking lot and said, “You worked so hard those afternoons practicing catching in the driveway. Getting out that close really did suck, didn’t it?” Mia immediately burst into tears. She’d been holding it in the whole time I was talking to Ms. Lopez, holding it in while she got her participation sticker, and it all came out. She cried that the 4th graders were stepping over the line the whole time, no one called them on it, she was never playing dodgeball again, they were all mean.
I just drove. I didn’t tell her she was being dramatic. I didn’t tell her it would be okay. I just nodded every once in a while and said “yeah, that sucks” when she paused. By the time we hit the stoplight by the grocery store, she’d wiped her face on her sleeve, pulled a pack of goldfish crackers out of her backpack, and asked if we could get glazed donuts instead of ice cream. Then she said she was gonna practice every weekend this summer so she could get those 4th graders next year.
I’ve been using this little trick for everything since that day, not just dodgeball tournaments. When Mia failed her multiplication quiz last month after studying for two nights, I didn’t say “it’s just one quiz, don’t worry about it.” I said, “You worked so hard for that, that’s really disappointing.” When her friend bailed on our weekend plans last minute, I didn’t say “we can find something else fun to do” right away. I said, “You were really looking forward to that, that’s a bummer.”
It’s such a small change, but it works way better than all the empty encouragement I used to spout. I used to think my job as a parent was to keep my kid from feeling bad, that if I could soften every blow before it landed, she’d be happier and more confident. What that dodgeball tournament taught me is that feeling bad isn’t dangerous. She can handle it. I just need to get out of the way and let her feel it, instead of rushing to fix it.
This year, Mia’s in 4th grade, and she’s already talking about the tournament next month. She’s been dragging the neighbor kid over after school to practice throwing and catching in the driveway. I still catch myself leaning in, ready to soften the blow before anything even goes wrong. It’s a hard habit to break. We don’t know if she’ll win this year. She might get out in the first round, or the last round, and she might be sad again. But now I know what to do. I’ll wait, I’ll name the feeling, and then we’ll go get donuts. That’s enough.
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