Stop Raising Losers
How to raise resilient kids in a fragile world.
“Is she good?”
That’s the question I get almost every time I mention that my daughter has started playing soccer. Most of my friends know that my wife and I played soccer, so it doesn’t take long before they’re asking if she’s going to be tall enough, fast enough, aggressive enough. Whether she’s scoring goals yet, if I’m training her the “right” way, or working with her in the backyard.
And I get it. We all want to celebrate kids. It’s normal to wonder how a child is doing in the activity they’re trying to master. But there’s a line we cross, quietly, subtly, sometimes unknowingly, when we start building identities around outcomes.
A child kicks a ball really hard, reads before their classmates, or learns to swim like a fish. And suddenly, with just a few well-meaning comments and social reinforcements, they start becoming the next Messi, the next J.K. Rowling, the next Michael Phelps. Not because they asked for it—but because they were praised into a persona they now feel pressured to uphold.
That’s how we unintentionally build outcome-based identities—identities that are only valid if performance stays high. And once a child begins to believe that their value comes from results, failure doesn’t just sting, it destabilizes their whole sense of self.
That’s what I fear could happen with my daughter. She’s seven. She’s learning to kick a ball into a tiny net and figuring out how to run without looking like a baby giraffe. And yet already, I can see the fixed mindset creeping in. That quiet assumption that because her parents were good at soccer, she should be too. That she needs to prove something. That scoring means she’s valuable, and missing means something might be wrong… with her.
What My Mom Told Me When I Made the Travel Team
I wasn’t a bad soccer player growing up but I wasn’t a prodigy either. When I got selected to play on a travel team an hour away from home, it felt like a huge leap. I was ready for the celebration speech, for the “see, you’re special” talk.
Instead, my mom told me something I’ll never forget: “You’re probably the worst one on that team. But if you work hard enough, you’ll find your place. You always do.”
That may sound harsh, but it was the greatest gift she could’ve given me. She didn’t build my identity around being a winner. She built it around being a worker. That meant failure didn’t shatter me; it was part of the process. Improvement was the goal, not image.
Later in life, I played at Messiah College—a program that changed my life. I was fortunate to be part of four national championship winning teams and eventually was even invited to the 2014 MLS Combine. (Now don’t get me wrong, this was Division III soccer. I’m not pretending to be Christian Pulisic here.) But I can tell you the turning point came during my very first time playing with the team. I had an absolutely terrible showing and started questioning whether I even belonged at that level.
Coach Dave Brandt pulled me aside and told me something I’ve carried ever since:
“You have to hold two truths in tension. First, you’re not good enough…yet. Second, we chose you because you absolutely have what it takes to figure it out. You have to take this truth, lock it up and never touch it again. If you keep asking yourself whether you belong, you’ll never have the confidence to do what it takes to grow.”
That’s the growth mindset in action, long before I had the words for it.
Fixed vs. Growth: Why Mindset Matters
Psychologist Carol Dweck coined these terms: a fixed mindset believes that ability is innate, static—either you have it or you don’t. A growth mindset believes ability can be developed through effort, discipline, and learning.
In one of her most famous studies, Dweck gave elementary school students a set of puzzles, then praised them differently. First round they were all given easy puzzles, and they all aced them. Some were told they were smart. Others were told they worked hard. Then when given a chance to try harder puzzles, the "smart" kids fell apart. The "hard-working" kids leaned in. Interestingly, both groups failed miserably–one took it personally. The next round both set of kids were given easy puzzles again. The smart kids? Broken, performed horribly. The hard workers? Went right back to work solving again.
What we praise shapes what our kids believe about themselves.
My coach didn’t praise my innate ability. He praised my capacity to grow. And in doing so, he gave me something far more powerful than confidence—he gave me resilience.
Josh Waitzkin, in The Art of Learning, calls this idea “investment in loss.” He says we must be willing to look stupid, fail often, and suffer defeat on the way to mastery. It's how he became both a chess prodigy and a martial arts champion, not by fearing loss, but by using it.
The Culture of Publicist Parenting
But that’s not the culture we’re raising kids in.
Today, we’ve got helicopter parents, lawnmower parents, and now what I’d call an emerging group of publicist parents. Those who constantly shape their child’s image and narrative like a brand campaign. They micromanage every outcome. They arrange private coaches, test prep, and plan resume building experiences. They panic if their kid fails a test, gets second chair, or is selected for the B team. I once had a parent tell me that if their child didn’t make the top soccer team in our Christian club, it would ruin their life and sabotage their college chances. I told them their child actually needed to be on the lower team to get playing time and grow. But that wasn’t enough. The status of the team mattered more than the substance of the experience.
This is how outcome-based identities get built.
The cultural damage is deep. The Coddling of the American Mind warns us that this overprotection is creating a generation of emotionally fragile kids who can't handle discomfort, disagreement, or failure. And Angela Duckworth's research in Grit shows that the most successful people aren’t the most talented, they’re the ones who stay in the game longest, fueled by discipline and perseverance.
Meanwhile, in high-performance arenas like sports and leadership, Compete to Create—a program developed by performance psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais and Super Bowl-winning Seahawks coach Pete Carroll—reminds us that greatness emerges not from perfect environments, but from the crucible of risk. Their goal is to create cultures where people feel safe to take risks, which in turn generates a competitive cauldron, a space full of courageous people who identify as risk-takers, not failures.
What God Is Actually Proud Of
As a follower of Christ, I think about this all the time. Not just as a dad, but as a man trying to do hard things.
I’ve learned that when I step out in faith, when I take a risk, pursue something difficult, try to build something that serves others, the outcome isn’t the thing God is proud of. He doesn’t need my success. He wants my obedience. He honors my risk.
There’s comfort in that. He’s not distant or dismissive when we fail. He’s near. He’s proud when we don’t bury the talents He gave us but invest them, even when it’s scary. And that’s the lens I want to bring into parenting. I don’t want my kids to fear failure. I want them to know I’m proud of them when they risk. When they take the hard shot. When they say sorry. When they get up and try again.
And if that’s what I want for them, I need to remind myself what actually matters. Not grades. Not goals. Not teams. Not trophies. But character.
So Stop Raising Losers
Let me be clear: when I say “stop raising losers,” I’m not talking about kids who fail.
I’m talking about kids who are taught (implicitly or explicitly) that their worth is tied to success. That winning means they’re valuable, and losing means they aren’t. That being a “starter,” an “A student,” a “natural” is who they are, not just what they do.
And here’s the truth: when we focus our attention, praise, and language on titles, results, and accolades, we teach our kids that those outcomes define them. That they’re a “winner” when things go well and therefore, inevitably, a “loser” when they don’t.
This isn’t what we mean to do. In fact, most of the time it’s driven by love. You want to encourage your child. You want to build them up. But in your effort to create a perpetual winner, you may end up raising a child who meets failure and takes it personally who internalizes it not as an experience, but as an identity.
And when they fail (which they will), they won’t say, “I made a mistake.”
They’ll say, “I’m not good enough. I never had what it took.”
They won’t just lose. They’ll believe they are a loser.
And that’s the tragedy.
Because we are never defined by our failures. Not to those who truly matter. But when we raise children whose worth is built on external outcomes, we’re putting that identity in fragile hands. We’re building it on sand.
The better way? Raise children who identify with the inputs.
Who see themselves not as “gifted” or “natural” but as courageous, resilient, and willing to try again. Raise kids who know that taking risks, falling short, and learning from them is not only acceptable, it’s admirable.
Because when you frame risk as obedience, and failure as formation, the stakes are no longer tied to identity.
They don’t say, “I’m a failure.”
They say, “I’m someone who had the courage to try.”
And that means, even in loss, they won.
So stop raising losers.
Start raising resilience.
-Josh
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Preach it, friend! This is a big issue in parenting culture today. I see this all the time as an educator. I'll add one thought: Parents need to be carful not to wrap their own identity up in the "success" of their child. That is where much of this "identity" trap comes from. Moms and dads want to prove their parenting prowess to their friends, and they do so by trying to raise superstar kids. Yet few kids will be a celebrity, influencer, star athlete or broadway actor. The first job of our kids is to trust God and His plan for their life. (The key to happiness, by the way.) Thus, the first job of parents is to lead their children to trust God's plan for their life.
What a wonderful article! We have a Bible study at church for all the young moms (they let me come, even though I’m an old mom) and I texted it to the group. Thanks so much.