There’s no better way to hold my seven-year-old’s attention right now than to extract a real life, ugly and raw story from my girlhood memories. But I never expected one about a bad sport to be the one she’d most wanted to hear.
I went to primary school with a girl with big emotions, too big for impatient nine-year-old me to understand, and one day we played tennis. What’s memorable about this match is when I faced off against – let’s call her Bec – she was so furious when she lost that she threw her racquet as well as a massive, sobbing tantrum.
It had been a close game, I remember feeling a mixture of relief and distraction when it was over because the summer holidays were fast approaching. And they did, and I carried on how kids do over December/January and spent time idling the hours playing outdoors.
When I got back to school I picked up my racquet to begrudgingly face off against Bec again but this time was shocked. She absolutely walloped me. Bec’s serve felt as fast as The Scud’s, her game as precise as Serena’s. Her demeanour was also different, she was noticeably calmer, and laser focused.
I had been arrogant enough to think her skill level would be parked alongside mine over the Christmas break, instead what she told our pleasantly stunned coach was that she’d played tournaments all summer. She became the best player at our school.
I haven’t seen Bec since the last day of Grade Seven so it amuses me now that on a weekly basis my daughter asks to hear the story, to be reminded underdogs can succeed with a little practice.
I don’t want my kids to feel overburdened by pressure to achieve but I do want them to have self-belief and Bec’s story is the best real-life example I have of this: never let yourself or anyone else box you in. It took just eight weeks of focus from this young girl to sharpen her skills and change people’s perceptions of her forever.
