How to play competitive games with young children

You know the situation. Your child wants to play snap or go fish or Connect Four or chess or whatever. You know this game well and are going to beat them easily, so what to do? Pretend to lose? Here's another idea ...

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• The game and whatever it needs.

1. Find child! Set up the game. Let's say Connect Four ... you know the game where you have to get four tokens in a row to win the game. The are many versions of this game.
2. If they don't know, teach them how to play the game and play some practice sessions.
3. When you both feel you're ready to play say:
   
   "OK, I've been playing this game for years and I know how to play pretty well. How many tokens do you think you should be able to play before I get my first turn?"
   
   Accept whatever they say. If they say 'Four' and drop in four tokens and then say 'I win' ... then you say 'So you do. Want to play again?' and then play again ... and again ... and again!
4. It is my experience that all children get bored quite soon with the easy wins and will begin to say 'OK I'll have three/two/one now.'
   
   It is really great watching them adjust and come to terms with the idea of playing for fun and that the difficulty of winning is part of the fun. And ... you avoid the lie of having to pretend to lose, which nearly all children see through and feel cheated. Really, they do!
   
   Have fun playing with your children.
   
   As an aside it is also a good idea to avoid praising children for winning, or because they have done well. Firstly praise them for being e.g. "Hi. it's great to see you!"
   
   On the occasions when children ask if they've done well ("Did you like they way I played the piano?") say "It's not up to me to say if you played well or not, that's your job, but I can tell you I really enjoyed listening to you play."

Tips & Warnings

• Wherever I have given forms of words to use, adapt them to the way you feel comfortable speaking while keeping the spirit.
• Do not hit your child, ever, under any circumstances.