In a children's competition, the real game is played by the adults
2026-03-14 16:48:28
TiranaPost
I am writing this article after midnight.
The day we left behind was filled with meetings, conversations and many discussions about the Children's Festival. For several days, a group of professionals in the field has been working to listen to and select the songs that will continue the competition on the stage of the Nationwide Children's Song Festival. There are many small voices, many songs and behind each of them a lot of work, a lot of emotions and a lot of anticipation.
Along with the songs, I have also received many messages and phone calls from parents. Most of them with a completely human desire for their child to be heard with
attention, to be valued fairly, to have more opportunities. Personally, I have been saying for over 25 years that this is our festival of creators... of children's songs, but at the end of the conversations, there is often a gentle sentence that every parent says from the heart:
“Say one more word about my child… he is very talented.”
I understand that feeling. When it comes to our children, we all want the world to see them the way we see them, as the best.
In the evening, after a long day at work, I sat down with my eldest daughter to watch another television competition. There, too, children were singing, dreaming, waiting for the jury's decision. When one of the promising talents was eliminated, my daughter, like many other children, including those in the competition, was really upset. To her, the talent was obvious and the result seemed unfair.
Seeing that sincere reaction made me think again about a question I often hear in discussions about education: are competitions good for children?
From my long experience in a children's music competition, I can say that the competition itself is not the problem. At its best, it can be a very beautiful experience where children prepare, go on stage, share the excitement, and prove themselves.
In principle, this is how any kind of competition should be oriented, whether in music, sports, school, or art.
In a children's race, what makes the experience beautiful or difficult for them is not the race itself. It's the adults.
Parents, teachers, organizers, and juries, by the way they construct and handle the game, decide whether it will be an experience that grows children or a burden.
on their shoulders.
If competition becomes an opportunity to test oneself, to learn to prepare, to stand out boldly before others, then it is a small school of life. Children learn that for every success there is work and for every achievement there is great effort.
But if competition turns into a place where every first place is seen as the sole proof of talent and every loss as failure, then we adults have changed the rules of the game.
Because in every competition there are only a few winners and many children who do not receive a prize.
But that doesn't mean they've lost. And that's not just a sentence to say. It takes work to make this the principle of how we build competition in children, how to encourage them to believe in themselves. How to make children cooperate more among
theirs, while they bring out the best in themselves? American psychologist Alfie Kohn, who has long studied the impact of competition on children, writes that the more we emphasize competition, the less space we leave for children to learn together.
This, I think, is where our greatest responsibility as adults lies.
Let's teach children that competitions are a game where they test themselves, not a scale where their worth is measured.
Because in a children's competition, in the end, the real game is always played by the adults.
