On letting kids win

[prog]

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.

Comments

[keimel.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure who came up with it, but when we started playing with the games here, which we should have started sooner - they love them, G-man started doing "Oh, you winned first!" At which point we continued the game and "I winned second!!!!" and so on. So, in a lot of the games, we can get away with all of us winning.

I will fully and freely admit that I cheat at Chutes and Ladders. Dear God, I can't imagine a worse fate than having to 'win second' by having to legally get up those frikkin ladders. And the last row is just the row of death for chutes. So, if he's already won, which is often, I'll cheat my way to the end, just because I want it to end. He doesn't notice when I do this because he's already won is usually paying much less attention to me just finishing up. But I finish, cause, well, that's how we play - otherwise I can "winned second!"

I also let him get the match of Zurg in Toy Story memory game. He just loves to get the Zurg match, so I'll let him. Of course, he usually just wins outright with memory anyhow.

Of course, with kids of my kids age, there is a measure of making sure they win sometimes - but that's rarely a problem, because so many of the young kid games are purely chance - so they do win. It's just the odds, they have to. So - we don't have to throw it to let them win. They win outright. And damned if my half-sister-in-law didn't nearly mop the floor with all the adults in risk. I think she was about 14 or so when she did that.

The odds in young kids games balance it. The kids will win some of the time. I don't see much need for pointers on cheating. That just doesn't make sense. If I end up throwing a game, it's not because I want him to win, but because I just want the blessed game to end sooner, as I see some people mention in that thread on BGG. My kids win at games and they lose at games. If they lose, I usually don't mind trying to play another one, just for the sake of letting him go to bed with a checkmark in the win column, but he does earn the wins he gets.

Of course, the odds in other games are not nearly as balanced, as they start introducing strategy. There's precious little strategy in the apple wormy game, but as the boys learn more, I tell them why they should switch apples with one person instead of another. It's getting there.

And yes, when he loses, he sometimes cries. Sometimes a lot. But we tell him that sometimes you lose, sometimes you win. That's how games go. And he keeps coming back to play - which is probably the best barometer of all.

;)

[prog.livejournal.com]

What you're doing with G now is exactly what my folks should have done! See, gamer parents are awesome. (Well, my parents are also awesome, just not so much with the games.)

Chutes and Ladders is such a crap game, though, especially for the poor grown-up. It's even more randomly capricious than Candy Land! If I found myself having to teach games to a youngun I'd pick something else. (There's discussion along these lines on the list I linked to.)

[keimel.livejournal.com]

Am always interested in more games in their age bracket. I'll check the thread with more brain cycles again.

And FWIW, the younger one also makes up games. "Well I want to play this game" "that's Uno (for kids) and you're not playing Uno. " "It's okay, I made a match" "Oh, so it's memory with UNO cards, okay, I can do that"

;)