Cheaterpants

My younger son loves to play games.  And not surprisingly, he loves to win.  He is so driven in fact, that he is a flagrant, and I mean flagrant, cheater.  As in he grabs a handful of cards from a deck and chooses the one he wants, right in front of his opponents.  Or he tries to break the rules by announcing just that and then shoots us the I-am-so-guilty-but-maybe-they-won’t-notice look.

Therefore, my son has been dubbed “Sir Cheaterpants.”

Fortunately he is a good natured boy and takes the ribbing well.  But his inclination to “stack the deck” in his favor has me thinking:

Should we let our kids win?

In other words, should parents put themselves in the role of reverse “Cheaterpants” so our kids can triumph on Family Game Night?  I have thought about this often over the years but haven’t come to a definite conclusion.  On the one hand, giving our kids a taste of success (letting them win) might encourage them to play more games reap and develop strategic and critical thinking skills.  But then what happens when they lose…at a game they have been lead to believe they have mastered?  Then again, setting kids up to lose from inexperience can be a deal-breaker…they may get so discouraged they may never want to role a die or draw a card again.

I have to admit I’m hard-pressed to remember how my husband and I handled the early years of Candyland and “Go Fish” and how our kids got to where they are today:  avid game players.  Which is great because my daughter just had her 8th birthday party and she received a slew of new games.  One of them was good old-fashioned checkers, which we previously owned in jumbo size, the playing board a full-sized beach towel and the pieces the diameter of coasters.  My kids had more fun pretending the black discs were ginormous oreos they “ate” while on pretend picnics.  But as this new version came in that recognizable round tin paired with Chinese checkers, and the pieces are of normal size, my “Sir Cheaterpants” was ready to learn the game.

So do we let him win?

My husband taught our son the rules as they set up and played the first game.  Dad smoked him.  But our son was a pretty good sport about it.  Perhaps talking rules and strategy (instead of trash) throughout the game softened the blow, as the competition was replaced by an opportunity to do something cool and new with Dad.  Hmmm.  The next day, my son came to me and wanted to challenge me to a game, a good sign his loss did not weigh heavily.  I followed Dad’s lead and reviewed the rules, showing him some good moves and mistakes and what the opponent can do after.  In the end, the game came down to the wire.  But I didn’t let him win.  Even after backing my son’s last King into a corner he was still all smiles that he almost beat me.

“Sir Cheaterpants” hasn’t won a game of checkers yet, but he seems ok with that.  It wasn’t that long ago he handled a loss at any game really badly.  Perhaps he is just maturing.  It probably helped this was a one-on-one game with a parent…I doubt he would have responded well if his brother or sister were involved and gained the upper hand.  And having uninterrupted attention from Dad and Mom could not have hurt, either.

“Reverse cheating” has never felt right, even though I have been guilty on many occasions of overlooking the move that would clearly be in my favor.  It doesn’t seem like a good way to help kids learn and build confidence.  As much as I want my kids to be happy and see that reflected in the success of winning a game, it seems a false, back door way of making that happen.  So when I played Checkers with my son and he was enjoying the process, asking lots of strategy questions,  I played him fair and square.  The time we spent together seemed more important than who captured the most pieces.  I guess there is a broader meaning to the trite (but true) lesson we all know:

It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.

Maybe with our kids, that means not just playing by the rules and taking turns and not being a “sore loser” but also that we take the time to play together.