It started on a snowy February day, when Rebecca created a story about ducks that build. We laughed, drank hot chocolate and enjoyed her tale of farm animals vexing old Farmer Sam by using his tools to replicate the Eiffel Tower in his backyard. And since her victory–which led to multiple newspaper interviews, a television appearance on PBS and celebrity status among her friends–new stories have popped up constantly. She tells stories as we drive in the car. She tells stories to strangers in elevators. She tells stories to her 3-year-old little sister who is trying to use the bathroom. Even at night when I sit in my own bed reading, I can sometimes hear her across the hall dictating her next story to her stuffed animals.

Don’t get me wrong: as a writer, I am thrilled to see my child so excited about writing. On the other hand, as a writer I know about winning contests, and about losing them. I know what it is like to work hard on a short story and have it amount to little more than a rejection slip. I also know the pressures of trying to live up to a reputation created by previous victories. What if she doesn’t win the contest again? What if she doesn’t even place? That’s the strange thing about being a parent. So many of our own past scars and dashed hopes can surface.

A revelation came last week when I asked her “Don’t you want to win again?” “No,” she replied, “I just want to tell the story of an angel going to first grade.”

I had just spent weeks correcting her stories as she spontaneously told them. Telling myself that I was merely an experienced writer guiding and shaping the young writer across the hall, I offered suggestions for characters, possible conflicts and exciting endings for her tales. The story about a fearful angel starting first grade was quickly “guided” by me into the tale of a little girl with a wild imagination taking her first music lesson. I had turned her contest into my contest without even realizing it.

Before I became a mother, I thrashed parents in my newspaper column for being too focused on winning, too adamant about high achievement and too blind about the pure joy kids feel playing a sport. I reprimanded the entire junior sports world as being nothing more than parents’ living out their own dreams through their kids. Then came my own foray into parenthood and that first writing competition. For that contest, Rebecca wrote and illustrated a story that I mailed, but then promptly placed in her memory box for a “someday” when she and her husband and kids could read it. The afternoon had been all about giggles and lips outlined with hot chocolate. Then she won–first place out of more than 200 entries–and suddenly that switch flipped on inside me. I wanted to guide her, protect her and propel her. I’d become just like the junior sports parents I had chided.

Staying back and giving kids space to grow is not as easy as it looks. When I become editor in chief of my daughter’s writing, I become that parent on the sidelines ordering around an 8-year-old who just wants to kick the ball before the game ends. And because I know very little about farm animals who use tools or angels who go to first grade, I had to accept the fact that I was co-opting my daughter’s experience.

While stepping back was difficult for me, it was certainly a good first step that I will quickly follow with more steps, putting me far enough away to give her room but close enough to help if asked . All the while I will be reminding myself that children need room to experiment, grow and find their own voices. They need their own chances to win–and lose–with unwavering parental support. And maybe if I step back far enough, our struggles to grow as writers will become our bond as we both sit at our desks and learn to live with the writer across the hall.