Discussion: Should parents teach their children to be winners?

The last part of your exam question asks you to write a short article for the magazine Modern Parents in which you discuss to what extent parents should teach their children to be winners.

When writing your article, you should remember to also pay attention to the structure and target audience. The structure of an article usually consists of a headline, an introduction in which you present the topic, the main body in which you present your arguments, and a conclusion in which you summarize the main idea/point of your article.

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Text 1 & Text 3

Two of the articles (text 1 and text 3) argue that parents and adults should be less focused on teaching children to be winners in a narrow traditional understanding of winning and success.

“Our Unhealthy Obsession with Winning” is not for rewarding simple participation (ll. 11-14) but neither into pushing children only to focus on the ultimate goal of winning something (be it a sport or academic competition). The article suggests that adults (parents included) should teach children a new perspective on what it means to be a winner, namely the discipline of hard work and perseverance, accepting failures as steps to success, contributing to the greater society and competing against oneself and not the others.

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Text 2

Text 2 in your exam set shows some of the negative effects of parents not teaching children to be winners. “How Adults Are Stealing Ambition From Kids” argues that parents are not encouraging genuine competition and not making their children understand the differences between failure and winning has negative consequences on the children’s development. The author argues that if parents do not teach children to be winners,...

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