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7th February 2025
02:50pm GMT
Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, she explained that always letting children win can actually do more harm than good.
“You’re kind of setting them up, aren’t you really, for a life of expecting to win and to do well,” she said.
“It can also make them put undue pressure on themselves because they feel like they have to achieve, they have to do well all the time.”
Instead of creating unrealistic expectations, Ketley suggests teaching kids to be happy with doing their best, rather than always aiming for perfection.
She believes it’s important for children to experience losing from a young age, rather than spending the first several years of their life thinking they’re unbeatable.
“I think once you get to that age, that they’ve already started going through competition and things in life and it starts in schools,” she said.
That being said, she doesn’t think parents should go out of their way to make things difficult for their children. If you’re playing games together, the competition should be fair.
“It’s got to be a fair competition,” she said.
“You know, playing games of snap with a five-year-old is perfectly fine, they're going to be able to play snap. But you wouldn’t maybe bring out Trivial Pursuit and expect them to be answering all the general knowledge questions.”
While it’s natural for parents to want to protect their kids from disappointment, Ketley warns that being too overprotective can lead to “over-parenting.”
She believes it’s important to be empathetic, but also to let children experience both success and failure so they’re better prepared for real life.
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