 Playing Games With Children: Should Parents Always Lose?
By Lee H. McKenzie, RN, MSN, MA and Michael D. McKenzie, MD, FAAP / Family Rhythms
Parents and Kids, August 2005
A father recently asked us a very interesting question: “When I play games with my son, should I always let him win?” As we talked about his concern, it became clear that, like many nurturing parents, he felt that the experience of winning would foster his son's self esteem. Through winning, we come to know that our actions are effective and that we are competent to face the challenge of the encounter. It makes all of us feel good, especially young children who tend to be reasonably egocentric and view life in terms of its impact on themselves. In fact, winning is often more important to young children since they may not have the necessary coping strategies that help them deal with the emotional response to losing.
The problem with life, however, is that we cannot be successful all of the time. There is no built-in certainty regarding what outcomes our efforts, or the efforts of our children, will produce in any given activity. Winning and losing is part of the life experiences that we all face—we can absolutely count on the fact that we will win some and we will lose some. While this may seem obvious to most adults, that same understanding does not necessarily hold for children, especially when it comes to playing with their parents. Many children have had the experience of winning every time they played a game with mom or dad, because our greater cognitive and motor abilities allow us to modify our efforts, so that our children can win. In doing so, we set the stage for their success and then celebrate their effectiveness with them. They feel good, we feel good.
Having said that, we come back to the interesting question of whether or not parents should always let their children win. If we assume that winning builds self-esteem, do we necessarily have to also assume that losing damages it? We know that losing brings some degree of frustration and disappointment, but is the level of disappointment higher if the loss comes from an encounter with a parent? As parents, aren't we all suppose to protect our children from the harshness of life's lessons for as long as we can?
Given that life is filled with activities that bring both success and failure, it is worth considering whether or not losing has any inherent value as a life lesson. Does it have to be demoralizing, or can we learn through failure? And, if there are lessons to be learned from losing, do parents have any role to play in providing opportunities to help their children learn those lessons?
We believe that losing is not inherently damaging to self-esteem. It is a natural part of life and can foster one's ability to experience failure with dignity. It can also provide opportunities to reflect on strategies and come up with alternatives that might be more successful next time. The way we structure our interactions with our children has a lot to do with whether the outcomes are emotionally demoralizing. Every encounter should not be turned into a competition. Often times, parents just need to play with their children so that both can enjoy the interaction for its own sake.
When our playtime with children does involve games, however, it is important to consider the child's developmental level. Toddlers and preschoolers are less concerned about the structure and rules of games; rather, they play for the enjoyment of playing and tend to make up their own rules on a whim. Winning and losing is not important to them, because they do not have an understanding of competition. What is much more critical is the time and attention gained from the interaction with a loving parent. School-aged children, on the other hand, are beginning to build an understanding of the structure of games and tend to be more rigid about the rules, especially children between the ages of 5-10 years. As children get closer to the pre-adolescent stage of life, they come to realize that the rules of games are social conventions and that there can be allowances for some degree of flexibility in the rules.
With all children, it is important to choose games that are appropriate to their developmental level and account for the difference between the abilities of the parent and the child. Although parents and children engage in a wide variety of games, games of chance provide the best opportunity to level the playing field. There are many simple card and board games where the skill level of the players is not the deciding factor that determines who will win. In general, these games of chance are played over and over, so that both the parent and child will experience winning and losing with each other. When the child loses, the parent is presented with a great opportunity to help the child learn to modulate the response to frustration. Saying something such as, “wow, I never thought I'd beat you!” will give the child the sense that they are still a formidable opponent in your eyes. Then you can follow with, “do you want another chance to beat me? Let's keep playing”. With young children, parents should end the game on a win for the child. Older children can adapt to the frustration of losing, especially when the parent demonstrates enjoyment in the experience of playing with them. Winning or losing then becomes secondary to the building of a relationship between parent and child. In the long run, this is much more important.
Our basic philosophy about parenting is that there is no one “right” way to act. We always have to weigh choices for our behavior. Ideally, the choices for how to we interact with our children come from an understanding of our children's developmental level and awareness of the goals for any given activity, including games. The purpose of playing games with our children does not have to be limited to issues of winning or losing. We can use games as an opportunity to foster the parent-child relationship and to model behavior necessary to deal with the outcome, whatever that may be. [return to In The News] |
