My older boy was among the last two standing in the district spelling bee in 5th grade. The rules are, no starting and stopping; no stammering; no changing your mind after you say a letter. You carefully think out the word - write it down if you need to - gain your composure, and recite each letter clearly.
His word was "juggernaut". He wrote it down, and recited. I noticed when he spoke his "J" sounded just a little bit like "G", but it was clear to me he said "J". He was in a hurry, didn't compose himself, and didn't articulate clearly.
They called him on it. He didn't wilt. He didn't whine. He didn't protest. He smiled, came and sat down by his mom and I, and showed us that he had written it down correctly, and just misspoke. It was an excellent lesson in rules, sportsmanship, "fairness", and handling disapointment.
I didn't have to seize any opportunity to teach those lessons at that moment, because my son had already learned them by age 10. He incorporated the lesson into his experience and moved on.
But if your kid hadn't learned them by that point, why wouldn't any parent seize an opportunity like the one presented here to teach such lessons? I guess the answer lies in the fact that the Jeopardy kid reached that age without having learned those lessons. Yeah, I'm kinda patting my wife and I on the back.
