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Inculcating cooperation over competition in children

By Archie Kohli : COUNCIL MEMBER

As the age-old Darwin saying goes ‘survival of the fittest’, it can be indicated that the means to human survival is through competition. Since centuries, we have observed the human race to indulge in competition in order to survive and now it has become a life skill. Indeed, we have promoted competition as a means of life in which we not only want to be the best but also teach to be the best to future generations. 

From a psychological point of view, this means is not healthy. Research in the discipline of social psychology claims that inculcating values of competition in the young generation is not only an unhealthy social skill but also increased mental pressure. Looking from a social skill point of view, children who only engage in competition with one another are not able to make healthy friendships in life. Moreover, competition also motivates children to think that labelling everyone as intellectually superior or inferior is fair. Such division created social barriers in healthy friendships. The second factor in breeding young competition is mental pressure. When a child learns that to be the best or to be superior is the way of life, it negatively affects its mental health.

Such children feel severely demotivated when they do not perform better or other perform better than them. Additionally, the constant worry of achieving also builds a lot of stress. Many a times, this stress takes the form of mental disorder in children and severe cases also lead to suicidal ideation. In this sense, unhealthy competition leads to a lot of mental pressure in childhood, which reflects poorly in adult personality. 

However, it is also often said that healthy completion breeds better performance. This is only true when it doesn’t associate with mental pressure. When the child learns that ‘it is okay’ to lose sometimes or in reality sometimes others perform better, then the child learns to face healthy competition. Another option and a better one is to inculcate cooperativeness instead of competition in children.

Cooperativeness activates many social skills in children like altruism, problem-solving, helping, decision-making and much more. It also teaches children at a young age on how to live in a collective society. Lastly, cooperativeness also promotes pro-social behaviour, which is beneficial to maintain healthy relationships in life. 

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