Beating Your Three-Year-Old

Winning is better than losing, but you have to accept losses

Whoa whoa whoa. I’ve told you I’m a bad parent, I’m not an awful parent. This isn’t administering a beating, this is about winning. For the past two weeks, Tom has cried at his ninja classes, because he didn’t win at the end of class game. Now, this could be my fault for cheating at board games enabling Tom to come away with a win, but in my eyes, I’m teaching him the rules of the game.

This has actually been in my idea list for a couple of years now. Tom is nearing 4, and the original title of this post was “Beating your two-year-old in a race.” Back then, the only way to get my competitive little toddler to ride his strider bike back to our house was to race him. Whether he got to our driveway first, or I did, according to him, he won. And that was fine with me, because, really, I just wanted to get back home without carrying his bike for him. But it did have me wondering when it was ok to sit him down, and discuss the differences between winning and losing.

Winning. Tiger Blood.

So we’re down a pretty steep path already, where Tom thinks losing is failure. Some could argue, that’s a strong motivating factor that can take him far in life. I’d argue crying about losing a silly game of dodgeball is more detrimental to his emotional well-being. Maybe that’s my bad parent showing.

Losing, repeatedly.

Tom has an iPad, so of course he plays games on it. I’ve recently downloaded what should be a cute kids’ game, about a jumping bean, called Bean’s Quest. It isn’t a kids’ game. It’s hard. REALLY HARD.

I’ve been trying to relay to Tom that both he and I can’t beat every level on the first try. Even Daddy fails. But when the jumping bean explodes, we switch turns, and try again. And maybe we get a little further into the level, and eventually we beat it.

The lesson feels like it’s sinking in, a little, but I think there’s room to keep pushing.

As it stands, I think next time we play, I’m about to whoop some ass in Candy Land.