Encouraging Your Sailor

I posed some questions in this post about how parents can avoid putting too much pressure on their kids to excel at sailing. And I pondered rhetorically how the kids of champion sailors such as Gary Jobson can cope with sailing in the shadow of the achievements of their parents.

Turns out that Gary Jobson has already addressed this subject in an article titled Encouraging Your Sailor first published in Yachting Magazine. He also touches on a question often posed to sailing instructors and much hashed over in sailing forums, "At what age should my kid learn to sail?" Gary has some excellent advice in the article -- do read the whole thing -- but the tips that I thought were most helpful were ...

• Explain that the difference between winning and losing is not that important.
  
  
• Demonstrate that most sailors experience many defeats before achieving success. (Personally I was a great example of this for my kids.)
  
  
• Emphasize restraint when winning.
  
  
• Don't always race. Kids love games.