prog | On letting kids win

Somewhat confessional post I just made on a Board Game Geek list about ways to let your kids win at different games:

I agree with the spirit of this list but I beg caution and temperance from any parent wishing to employ it.

I remember my early childhood very well, and I am convinced that my ability to fully enjoy games was stunted and delayed by the fact that my parents and older brothers would always let me win at everything. After a while, they started to experiment with playing for real. I'd cry and carry on when I started to lose, and rather than teach me why losing didn't equate to some sort of existential failure , they quickly gave up and just let me win more.

What ultimately developed was the creature we all despise - a sore loser. My young peers quickly discovered that I was a terrible person to play games with, even though I always wanted to play games. When I was a little kid I'd try punching out anyone who out-Monopolied me, and even as late as college I'd storm away from a chessboard or even a video game when things were going poorly. I finally grew out of it by my mid-twenties, just in time to discover the secret world of non-Hasbro games.

I hope this doesn't come across as a "I blame my parents for everything" post. I love my family and realize that they were only trying to help me be happy. But since they didn't really care about games, figuring that they were mainly tools to mollify one's children, their use of them was well-intentioned but misguided.

Since the parents reading this know better than mine did about games, and have an active interest in instilling a lifelong love for them in their children, I urge that they be very careful when it comes to letting the little ones win. I encourage taking a controlling role in gameplay with your very young children, but I urge that you do so in order to let them learn about both winning and losing, and talk to them about what both conditions mean.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh man, I hate when people throw games to kids. I think we've talked about this. It totally counts as lying, and lying to kids is never cool. And plus, you're right. It does create sore losers. My father and grandfather use to whip our butts at board games. It taught us how to play for real and it also made us feel brilliant when we actually started beating them.

My other thought is this. Maybe it's important for little kids to play games with other little kids. I played a lot of games with my brother and cousins, and we were all about the same age. (Usually with some adults thrown in the mix.) Adults can't throw a game as well when there are multiple kids, because how do you pick which kid wins? Some kids always have to lose if there are multiple kids. I think this is healthy.

I'm quite against Santa Claus and all his faerie ilk too, though I've promised my parent-friends that I won't go knocking down the lie for their own kids.

I'm pretty sure I agree with you, but, playing devil's advocate here, maybe lying to your kid is the best way to teach them how to deal with being lied to (especially by authority figures).

I think kids probably get lied to enough in other places that you could be honest with them and they'd still learn the how-to-deal-with-being-lied-to lesson.

Lying to kids is totally cool.

I don't just mean that facetiously. We lie to kids when we says things like "You can't subtract 3 from 2, because 3 is bigger." Well, of course you can. But there's a point in a child's development when it's just plain easier to lie.

The question becomes, what lies is it OK to tell when?

I don't know if that's a lie, though. It's more like a dodge, being true if framed in certain ways. In this context it's basically shorthand for "You can't subtract 3 from 2 (and end up with an answer that's meaningful or even comprehensible to you right now)." Perfectly valid, says I.

We lie to kids when we says things like "You can't subtract 3 from 2, because 3 is bigger."

But no one would ever say something like that. I mean really. What possible context would require such a statement?

There are loads of mathematical concepts kids might not get, but you just say something like, "There's a way that subracting three from two can be made meaningful, but it's too complicated for me to explain" (not, note well, "it's too complicated for you to understand"--the concept may well be within the child's grasp, and who am I to say otherwise, and there may well be ways of explaining it to that child that would work, but if I have to fall back on this kind of answer I'm sure I don't know what they are.)

Why anyone would tell a kid (or anyone) something so transparently false as "you can't subtract three from two" is beyond me. At the very least you'd tell them, "You can't subtract three from two YET", and make that explicit, because it is basically a narrative hook to keep them wondering how to do it eventually.

But no one would ever say something like that. I mean really. What possible context would require such a statement?

Grade school. Seriously, that's what teachers say. Your paraphrases may be reasonable, but they aren't what's used.

I agree that kids get lied to in school quite a bit, but that doesn't make it right. There are better ways of relating difficult concepts to kids, and some teachers also use those. So one might say something concrete such as, "If there are two duckies in a pond you can only take two away. You can't take away three duckies because there aren't three there."

And for instances where you can't think of how to make an answer honest, I agree with radtea. Just tell them you can't explain it. That works if you're just too tired, as well. Kids are exhausting with their "whys" and "how comes" so it's fair to tell them you'll answer the question later. And that reduces the temptation to lie to make things easier.

Of course, I don't have kids. But I do enjoy the back seat parenting. :)

On letting kids win

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Lying to kids

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