Let Gratitude Carry You through the Competition Season

Will (18) and Christina (13) in Montreal during a family trip after the 2003 Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships.

It’s often said that competitions are harder on parents than on the athletes competing. That’s true in too many ways. But competitions can be made easier for everyone, thanks to gratitude.

I’ve talked about gratitude and the Gratitude Community before. I truly believe that gratitude is a key to happily surviving your child’s competitions, regardless of the outcomes.

Rather than worrying about the competition outcome, adding to my list of 1000 gifts throughout a skating competition is one of the best things I’ve done to enjoy the experience. It always helped to make an extra effort to find—and create—things to be grateful for. This works well both during and right after a competition.

Attaching a mini trip to the end of a competition especially added numerous “gifts” to my gratitude list. Some of our most disappointing competitions actually had some of our most memorable trips at the end. By focusing on gratitude, my family could thoroughly enjoy the trip and forget about the competition outcome.

Have you found ways to use gratitude to make competitions better for you and your family?