Dealing with the Pressure - Southern CO Regional Tournament

There are so many life lessons whenever we endeavor to do another FLL year. This year, it was about how you act when under stress. It's tough to see these pre-teens and teens have to worry about their robot or be stressed out about being judged on their projects. However, what the kids learn about their reactions and how to deal while under a lot of pressure is invaluable.

During the chaos of robots not working, kids not all the way prepared and batteries at the wrong levels, one of the parents said, "Now you guys can win this whole thing, but if you do it and hate each other at the end of the day, it's not worth it." SO TRUE! There was a lot of negative energy throughout the morning of our regional tournament held a few Saturdays ago. Things just weren't going right and it wasn't any one thing that you could easily solve. The kids had to be taken aside and calmed down. They were frustrated, confused, angry and everything in between. What to do? What to do?

Since we're a Christian group of homeschoolers, we prayed together. We didn't pray for a magic formula, we didn't pray for all the other robots to blow up. We just prayed for us to do the best we could and regain some sense of peace during such a hectic day. This was how they got things in perspective. It didn't solve all our problems immediately, but gradually things got better during the day. Attitudes slowly got readjusted, strategies were redeveloped and the team really pulled together and supported one another. Yes, there were problems, but how a kid learns how to deal with them is a lesson much more memorable than what trophy you got. They learned where to go when things get tough!

During their 6th and final robot run, the kids, on their own, huddled up as a team and said one more prayer for the last of the days events. Now I don't know what was said, but that picture alone made me feel so proud of the kids. They knew what really mattered on a day like today. They ended up with their best robot run of the day and it shot them up in the rankings to get the 3rd Place Robot Performance Award. After their run, they Tebowed.