What I Learned When My 8th Grader Said “I Guess I Competed” After Graduation
Last week, I was folding the scratchy blue folding chair we’d dragged into our town’s middle school gym for 8th grade graduation when my oldest son leaned against the scuffed wooden bleachers, crumbs from a reception chocolate chip cookie falling on his new white sneakers, and said, “I just graduated from 8th grade. I guess that I competed.”
For three years, I’d watched this competing play out, and I’d spent most of that time quietly worrying it was a problem. It wasn’t just organized sports, though he cared about winning those too. It was everything: who got to the car first after school, who finished their homework faster, who got more “likes” on the first post he put up on Instagram, even who could eat a slice of pizza quicker at dinner. When he got a B+ on his first big 6th grade research project, he locked himself in his room and cried because three of his classmates got an A. I drove to his favorite taco truck, brought him a carnitas taco and a horchata, and gave him the speech all the parenting articles tell you to give: “Grades aren’t a competition. It doesn’t matter what anyone else got. It’s about what you learned.” He stared at his taco, picked the cilantro off, and didn’t say a word for 20 minutes. I left thinking I’d gotten through to him, that I’d cured his unhealthy need to win.
I was wrong. By 7th grade, he’d joined robotics club just because our district’s rival middle school beat our team the year before, and he wanted to be on the team that took the title. He skipped his best friend’s birthday paintball party to rewire the team’s competition robot the weekend before the match. They lost by 12 points. He shook the other team’s hands, got in the car, and asked if we could stop for ice cream on the way home. When I asked if he was disappointed, he shrugged and said “Next year we’ll get them. I already know where we messed up.” That’s when I started to realize my approach was all wrong. I’d been treating his need to compete like a behavior to correct, not a piece of how he shows up in the world.
When he said that line after graduation, I asked him what he meant. He kicked a loose bottle cap across the gym floor, said, “Everyone’s always telling you not to compete. Teachers say ‘just do your best,’ you guys say ‘don’t worry about what everyone else is doing.’ But for me? Competing is the only way I get myself to do hard stuff. I couldn’t make myself study for the algebra final if I wasn’t trying to beat Jake, who’s gotten one more point than me on every test all year. I couldn’t make myself run the extra mile after cross country practice if I wasn’t trying to beat my time from last month. I don’t even care that much about beating people. It just gives me a reason to show up.”
That hit me. I’ve spent years buying into the idea that all competition is unhealthy for middle schoolers, that it erodes self-esteem and ruins friendships. That’s true for a lot of kids—for my younger daughter, the pressure of competing makes her shut down and refuse to try anything new. But for my son, competition is his motivation. It’s not that he thinks his worth depends on winning. It’s that competing gives him a clear target to work toward, and that makes hard things feel doable.
Over the past year, I’ve adjusted how I respond, and the changes have been small enough that anyone can try them. The first thing I changed was what I say when he brings up competing. Instead of leading with “it doesn’t matter who wins,” I now just ask “did you have fun going for it?” It doesn’t shut down his motivation, and it gets him thinking about his own experience instead of just whether he beat someone. The second change I made is I only step in when competition hurts someone, not when it just exists. If he teases his sister for losing a bike ride or shoves her to get to the car first, we stop and talk about respect and kindness. If it’s just a silly race or a quiet goal to outscore a classmate, I stay out of it. Third, when he’s fixated on beating someone who’s a lot more experienced right now, I don’t tell him to lower his expectations. I just ask him what one small thing he can do this week to get closer to that goal. That turns a big, overwhelming competition into small, manageable steps, and keeps it motivating instead of discouraging.
I still don’t know if this is the right long-term approach. I worry sometimes that when he gets to high school, he’ll be up against hundreds of kids who are faster, smarter, and better at the things he cares about, and he’ll burn out. I’ve had more than one other parent tell me I’m enabling him, that I should be teaching him to slow down and enjoy the process. Maybe they’re right.
His graduation tassel is sitting on our kitchen counter right now, frayed at the end, and he lost the honor cord he got somewhere between the gym and our car. He’s already talking about making the varsity cross country team as a freshman and beating the top returning runners next season. I don’t know how that’s going to go. All I know is that when he said “I guess that I competed,” it wasn’t a brag and it wasn’t an apology. It was just who he is, right now. And that’s enough for me, for now.
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