PR: Letting them win

ASmallWonder

Do you let your 3 year olds win at stuff?  Obviously they have to learn they don't always win but what about things where, if you put in any effort at all, you'd beat them every single time?  Aiden loves to race and obviously any adult is going to smoke him.  We've always let him win because he gets such a kick out of it but DH decided to win the other day and Aiden melted down.  He doesn't do that with games and stuff, just the racing.  Are we doing him a huge disservice if we keep letting him win races but make sure to balance things with other activities?

NotSharknado

We've always tried to balance it out. We let Ds win sometimes but not always.

We made the mistake of always letting him win and he would have a melt down if he lost anything with other kids.

ASmallWonder

mbenit4 said:

No we don't.

Not ever?  He's too little to legitimately beat us at a lot of things but winning boosts his confidence and motivates him to keep trying.  When he's old enough to win a game for real we wouldn't throw them but right now I think it's about balance.  I would think it would be majorly disheartening to never ever win at stuff

ASmallWonder

HilarityEnsued said:

I think there are different kinds of considerations here.  When you are talking something like a board game or a card game or checkers or whatever (something that isn't measured in physical skill), then I would say absolutely do not "let" him win.

If you are talking about athletic competition, I do think there is a good balance, because it's just not a fair fight.  So you don't want to discourage him to the point where he just doesn't want to play, but you don't want him to think that winning is the only reason to play either.

The meltdown caused a good chat because once he realized DH was way ahead of him he just stopped running and cried.  We sat with him and explained that he won't always win but that never means you stop trying.  You always try your very best and sometimes you'll win and sometimes you won't but you can never be a sore loser.  

ASmallWonder

Fair enough @mbenit4  Aiden is majorly into "MMA style" fighting with DH and racing and he just loves to think he actually got DH in a take down or beat him in a race, which obviously is impossible

Maybe I project but if I never ever showed any sign of improvement on something, I would consider that to not be the "thing" for me.  Like, some kids no matter how long they take dance lessons will never be good at it so maybe their thing is music or something else.  He can't win in racing but he loves it but I could absolutely see it being demotivating to never seem to get better but only because you're physically incapable of winning against an adult, kwi?

pandaglitter

We usually let her win because I'm lazy and don't feel like racing, but when we do win we make it close. She's melted down a few times and then we talk about how we don't always win and how when we lose, we don't throw fits because that wouldn't be fun and how we don't want to race with her if that's how she's going to act when we win as that's no fun.

In games I let her win at least once if she's horrible (like at uno she will change the color to a color she doesn't even have and then get annoyed she can't play anything) but otherwise play fair and she's fine with losing sometimes.

missymo

Occasionally, I let her win. Especially if she is giving a great effort - in that instance I almost always let her win.

Truthfully, I also really love to win. I'm very competitive. So, I often take no prisoners. In your face, kid!

I do also try to teach her how to be a good winner by example. It's hard though, because I'm normally the type to do a victory dance.