In some societies, people believe that competition engenders success, while others believe cooperation fosters stronger social bonds. Although, competitiveness among children might be necessary in some scenarios such as sports, I believe, teaching to cooperate is both beneficial and healthier for children’s long-term happiness and success.
Many parents widely believe that their children should contest with their classmates in order to get ahead of everyone, whether it be academic assessment or sports. For example, especially in Asian cultures like China and India, parents often put pressure on their children to excel on exams. Because, the communities of such countries rank success and intelligence of juveniles’ based on the marks they get on exams. Also, the academic excellence of a child usually puts the child’s parents’ social status higher in the society they live in.
On the other hand, some groups of people believe that success is attained when the members of the society start to cooperate with each other. In such societies, children are taught from their young age to partner with others to achieve a common goal. For instance, most of the Japanese schools have a policy that mandates their students come together and clean the classrooms after the school is over for the day. Furthermore, in the last football world cup, Japanese people were seen cleaning the litter in the stadium after the match was over, without being ordered or without any legal requirement. This type of joint efforts are often the results of being taught to work as a team and to rely on others if needed.
While competing in sports for securing a position is completely reasonable and should be emphasized, it is detrimental for children’s mental health and long-term social relationships to encourage to compete when it is not necessary. As an example, marks secured on exams shouldn’t define young ones’ intelligence. But instead, their behavior should be corrected if needed, based on how they present themselves among others.
Ultimately, the cooperation is what perpetuates the society’s momentum of growth, not competition. A child taught to fight against his/her peers to attain higher ranks in communities does harm not only to the child’s attitude towards life, but also to the group he/she is a part of. Hence, children should not be taught to contest with each other unnecessarily if it does not guarantees the long-term harmony of their communities.