Skip to main content

The difference between excited and proud

By
My daughter had her school athletics carnival this week.  This is a day that she looks forward to all year as she excels in athletics.  This year, however, she had a bit of a challenging day.  At one point through the carnival she was in tears telling me how she didn’t want to disappoint anyone.  It has led me to contemplate the difference between being feeling excited, and feeling proud, and I am writing about it now to get my thoughts in order so that I can explain to her why, no matter what the result, I am the opposite of disappointed.

Let me preface this with a note that she is exhausted at the moment, physically and mentally.  She is in a production of Oliver at the local theatre, and the rehearsals have proven to be longer, more frequent, and more tiring than we imagined.


Excited is how I felt when she won her 100m race.  Proud is how I felt when she kept going, even though she missed the start whistle and started a couple of seconds after the other girls.  It would have been easy to give up on the spot.

Excited is how I felt when she beat the school record and took first place in the high jump.  Proud is how I felt when I saw her comforting her friend, who was jumping injured and was sad at missing her jump.

Excited is how I felt when she won the 200m, and the long jump.  Excited is how I felt when she managed to take 3rd place in the 800m by a hair.  Proud is how I felt when she completed the 800m, even though she hates it, was feeling sick (after drinking a milk drink that I told her not to drink), and ran the last lap without a shoe.

Excited is how I felt when I knew that they were about to call her name to receive her medal for age champion.  Proud is how I felt when she managed to keep it together and congratulate her friend, after they actually called her friend’s name to receive the medal.

The next day, I received a phone call from her friend’s mum, telling me that they had figured out that there must have been a miscalculation and Megan should have received the medal (this turns out to be correct, but the result was very close and both girls will get medals).  She said that her daughter was sad, but knew it was the right thing to do.  I imagine that excited was what her parents felt when she won the medal.  Proud would be how they felt when she was willing to give it up.

Excitement for me is a fleeting feeling, a momentary thrill.   It could last for a few minutes, or a few days.  Feeling proud is a deep, lasting feeling.  It comes from the knowledge that your child is developing characteristics and skills that will benefit them throughout their entire life.

This is why I could never be disappointed with her performance at the athletics carnival, because no matter what the result, she showed resilience, persistence, and compassion in the midst of challenges.

Comments

  1. PollyannaJune 9, 2013 at 3:47 PM

    Yeah and yah to all the above. Mum gets a medal too. Can I write a blog about the difference between being excited for Cassie and proud of Cassie? Despite her busy-ness and yours, she is at least getting some traction in all that speed.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

13 night cruise around New Zealand on the Dawn Princess

By
On January 3rd we embarked on our fourth cruise with our friends, the Penney family.  We have known the Penney family since our kids were very young, with our youngest children born only 2 weeks apart. Given some potential medical concerns, we chose a New Zealand cruise as it would have been fairly easy to access high quality health care if needed. This was the first time that the Penneys had cruised. We had previously done two P&O cruises to Vanuatu and New Caledonia, and a Disney cruise from Florida to the Caribbean.  This time we were cruising with Princess on the Dawn Princess. Comparison of Cruise Lines It was interesting to note the differences between the ships.  We found that the P&O ships had a much younger demographic, with a party atmosphere and an emphasis on the nightlife.  The Disney cruise of course had a heavy family focus. We found the ship, the service, the shows and the theming to be exceptional on the Disney cruise but did not particularly like
4 comments
Read more

The day that both broke and warmed my heart – 15 Jan 2011

By
Yesterday I cried all the way home from Fairfield to Windaroo. My home was well away from the floods. I hadn’t lost anything except my naïve assumptions about the damage a flood can do. But I couldn’t hold back the emotion. As the flood waters receded, we knew that we had to do something to help those affected by the Brisbane floods. Thousands of homes had been inundated by flood waters and they were saying on TV and on the internet that an army of volunteers was needed. I arranged for my Mum to come and watch the kids for the day, packed the car with brooms, shovels, mops, buckets, water and other cleaning supplies, and set off to try to “do some good”. My brother in law and his wife had friends on a street in Fairfield whose house had been submerged up to just under their roof, so they sent me the address and I headed for Fairfield. I was nervous as I didn’t know what to expect. As I drove under the overpass at Mt Gravatt I saw a huge line of volunteers over the bridg
5 comments
Read more

Adventures in Parenting

By
We decided that something we had to address with the kids was the fact that Reid was sleeping on Megan's floor on a mattress every night, which meant that neither of them were getting enough sleep. So I took the mattress out of her room one day and hid it in my cupboard, and told Reid he could sleep in his room or the spare room, just not Megan's room. When it came down to it, the only way to get Reid to sleep in a separate room was to lay down in bed with him until he fell asleep. For a few weeks now that's what we've been doing. Overall it is working. Reid is sleeping in a different room, and Megan is getting more sleep. This plan has it's disadvantages though. For one, most nights it's pretty even odds who is going to fall asleep first - him or me. A few nights I have woken up at 9:30pm to find him finally asleep next to me. How I fall asleep I don't know because Reid going to sleep is like a dog going to sleep - how they get up and down and turn a
4 comments
Read more