Thoughts from my son's first wrestling tournament.

I watched my son wrestle in his first tournament last weekend.

Very little has changed about wrestling tournaments since I was his age. Weigh-ins, kids running around in singlets, the smell of mats —- It’s organized chaos with a particular brand of comradery.

You can see the kids who excel at the sport. They’re the kids who execute takedowns flawlessly, pin in the first round or let their opponent back up just so they can practice another takedown. It take a special mix of technique, strength, agility, problem solving and perseverance to be great at this sport.

Some kids, on the other hand, are just trying to survive. Many kids are visibly worn down after a few rounds. One kid was audibly whining and crying out most of his match. That match was difficult to watch.

I think it’s the kids just trying to survive that the sport has the most to teach.

Truth be told, I was one of those kids. Sure I did OK. I came in second or third in a couple of tournaments, but never first.

There was always someone there to beat me. Always someone who had that special mix figured out. They would wear me down, get me on my back and I’d give up.

Here’s the thing I realized watching those kids. Once you think you’ve lost, you’ve lost.

It’s a mental game.

You have two opponents in every match. One who’s trying to pin you. Another who lives in your head and is trying to get you to give up.

I’m convinced the guy in your head wins way before the guy on the mat nine times out of ten.

When it was my son’s turn to wrestle, I honestly expected him to not be sure what to do.

This kid surprised me. When someone went in for a shot, he sprawled. When he was on the bottom he worked his way up and got a few reversal. He even went in for a few take downs of his own.

He worked his hardest and applied what he learned at practice. But he still lost every single match.

Each match his coaches and I praised the things he did well and gave him things to work on next match. His spirits were good.

He was losing the match on the mat, but not the one in his head.

But the thing about the match in your head is it never stops. You can only take so many losses before it starts to wear on you.

A match came where he stopped struggling against getting pinned. He needed time to compose himself after a match or two.

I could have tried to prepare him for this — given him some sort of pep talk about never giving up. But, you have to experience these feeling for yourself.

To know your limits you have to go just a little past them. This is true physically and mentally.

My son learned more about his limits that day. But there’s two things that make me so proud of him. He always showed up for the next match ready to do his best. And, at the end of the day, he didn’t focus on his loses, he focused on how much he’d improved this year. He’d gained strength and skill from practice and chose to learn from his losses.

The growth mindset he has blows me away.

I don’t want to pretend to be an expert in teaching kids to have a growth mindset. But there’s two things that I have done that I think have helped:

1) I share my current goals, what I’m doing to achieve them and what I learn.
2) I’ve talked openly about my mistakes.

Teaching a requires modeling and communication. Pick a goal that requires you to grow and talk about your progress and what you’re learning frequently.

Our children need to see us grow, so they can learn how to do the same.