In all seriousness, I was listening to a story on NPR about kids and competative team sports (hockey, soccer, etc.). One of the points of the piece was that the competition is *really* good and productive for the kids -- not the winning or losing, so much; but the act/moment of competing. The experts they had on were very clear that in multiple studies, they've found that kids tend to benefit in-the-moment from the act of competition but don't care very much whether they win or lose.
The parents, on the other hand, live and die (in far too many cases) on the success of their kids' efforts. Parents like this do a good job of effing up their kids.
