Should I Keep My Children Away From Competitive Activities To Help Them Avoid Stress?

— -- Question: Should I keep my children away from competitive activities to help them avoid stress?

Answer: You know we really generally don't need to necessarily keep kids away from competitive activities. I think it's important to talk to the child about their take on being in these competitive activities.

Some children actually really enjoy them and find them a good stress reliever rather than something that stresses them out. So talking to the child, figuring out whether this is something that's good for them and helpful for them, or something that they might find too taxiing or too much pressure from the competitive activity.

Once you've talked with them, you can maybe even do an experiment and have them ease back a little bit on the competitive activity to see if they start feeling better. If that's the case, you'd eliminate the activity. If not, you might continue having them do it cause it may actually be helpful for them.