When losing upsets your child
it’s okay to let them win
Often young kids, but sometimes even older kids (and adults), hate losing. Younger kids will get upset, sometimes throwing and crying and kicking. Parents get rather concerned about these moments. They worry their child will always be a “sore loser.”
Mainstream parenting, behaviorism, tells us if we don’t teach our children to lose, it will always upset them. So we force our kids to lose games and sit in empathy with them while they cry.
There are children who grow into teens and even adults who hate losing. But I don’t have evidence that being forced to lose would change that. It’s far bigger than being forced to lose over and over and over that will make them be okay with losing.
Most kids who hate losing are preschoolers. I’ve written a lot of about preschooler brains, I repeat this daily to parents of preschoolers. Preschooler brains are very undeveloped compared to adults. They don’t have the structure where we find executive function like planning, emotional regulation, and impulse control. Kids this age can only hold one thought of their own in mind, so taking on the view of another person or remember the directions of someone around them. That’s why they seem self-centered, but it’s just an inability to think about more than one thing.
It’s expected that because of their brains, preschoolers would dislike losing. Losing is bad in their minds and that’s all they can think about. They can’t think they might win another time, or be happy for the person who won. Only upset now.
This is a bit of a generalization, because some preschool kids are fine with losing. Some have impulse control sometimes. But as a general rule, it’s typical.
You do not have to force your kids to lose to teach them to lose. Mostly, they will grow out of hating losing games, about the time they enter school. They will be probably be okay playing games in gym class and recess without upset.
If your child hates losing, there are a couple of alternatives.
Changing the rules
You don’t have to play by the box rules. We often think we do, but we don’t. When my kids were young, I let them “cheat”. I let them skip a space, or roll the dice again, or pick a different card. We talked about playing outside the rules, being flexible, and that it was about having fun. We talked about how other people probably wouldn’t see it as fair, but also since they were young, I just didn’t let them play competitive games with people who were strict on rules.
Cooperative games
I love cooperative games. We have been playing them for a long time and they’ve been around for a long time. There are endless cooperative games available now for all ages.
There are board games by various companies. We like the Forbidden Island game and I introduced it to some older kids who hated losing. And they had a blast playing together. They loved problem solving and taking charge of the game. We also have Forbidden Desert, but darn it, that game is difficult to beat.
Table top roleplaying games are also great options for playing together. And they are great at creating an environment for cooperation, problem solving in a group, creativity, story telling.
A couple of our favorites are Hero Kids and the D&D board game. Though with the board game, we quickly got board with the abilities and crafted our own character sheets and flexibility with attacks and bad guys. Amazing Tales was another game that looked really cool, but I never implemented.
If you want a game without bad guys, the Golden Sky stories are super cute. Though I never totally understand all the rules of the game, so we never played a campaign.
If your child ends up becoming a kid who hates losing even past the preschool age. Do not despair. You don’t need to lose at games to get through life. You can keep enjoying cooperative games. Tabletop roleplaying games are super fun. And what better skill is there than problem solving and cooperating with others? Isn’t that what relationships are about?
