Would you let your child lose so another can win?

surely that teaches the sulker that their sulking works? Rather than putting in effort and improving their skill? Just sulk and people will give you what you want.

Nope. If they win, they win on merit. Same for your dc.

They are very out of order to ask as it’s not just something you can influence it would involve your child as well having to take a negative action to enable this and that’s wrong. Tell them to get their dc a tutor or something and that a real achievement will be worth so much more than an engineered fake one

No chance. What’s that teaching her kid? These are the kids that don’t understand why the world is so hard when they grow up. DSC’s DM is a snowplough parent like this, removing any obstacles all through their childhood. They are finding life as young adults very hard.

Please, please say no. Absolutely insane that she asked this of another parent!!! Just say that you're not going to ask your son to do that because you don't feel comfortable doing so. If you do do this it teaches neither child anything good at all

Would be a flat no from me, your child shouldn’t have to dim their light to let another shine bright in this situation.

Once I did. DS was around 5/6, he had a friend who was very sulky if he didn't get his own way. I took them to the seaside and in the children's amusements they played a driving game and DS won twice on the trot. I whispered him to let friend win the next game they played as I was fed up of the sulking.

Absolutely not!

my pet peeve in pass the parcel as a kid was when parents didn't put any little gifts in the in-between layers and then deliberately stopped the final layer on their birthday child. it was such a waste of time and really annoying because it was always a really good prize (because they'd planned for that!)

Depends how much choice the children have about competing and how damaging it is for the child who loses.

My DS finds maths games extremely easy. He's miles ahead of his peers and not through hard work, he just gets it.

If there was a situation where another child was paired with him against their will and he was just going to easily beat them every time I'd understand if another parent would want him to just let the other child win one round, because confidence in maths is so important and i wouldnt want another child's maths confidence dented.

Tricky - my little one is impossibly good at her activity (her GP is mystified at her ability as it shouldn’t be physically possible at her age so there’s definitely something ‘ not normal’ for lack of a better word going on there.
Her teachers have all said in all their years of teaching they’ve never seen anything like it ) That said, she works incredibly hard and practise for hours a day and I’m in complete awe of her discipline at such a young age . There’s absolutely pressure from me - she just loves it!

however we do talk about how other children need the opportunity to get star of the week - because it feels unfair if she gets it every week when she has a natural advantage- and I do think that trying should be acknowledged as well. Selfishly, I think it’s a good lesson for her to see that trying something you aren’t naturally good can be fun too- and it’s not just about being the ‘best’ it can just be doing your best (that was was a remarkably cringy sentence!)

A hard no.

Absolutely ridiculous thing to do.

It is awful for both children.

Of course not.

Life sucks, someone is always better, this is a lesson they need to learn.

Failure promotes effort.

Absolutely not. Don’t train your child to be a “people pleaser” who gives demanding, selfish people what they want and disadvantages themselves and their family.

No! Unless it's a board game and you're playing with a younger /SEN child I would not ask mine to loose.
I would laugh out loud if a mum asked me to tell my child to loose. I would seriously think it was a joke, are you sure this is not the case?

Absolutely not,

What a horrible message to give to your child.

All children should compete to the best of their ability. Think it's different to a game like pass the parcel which is entirely chance and designed to give out prizes

I absolutely would not. That being said DS is generally considerate of other children's feelings and I've seen him tank a game to let a younger one win! So I'd probably have a conversation with him about how much X wanted to win, and let him take it from there.

I wouldn't request that my child deliberately lose.

But I know when I was little and had parties at home with games (pass the parcel, musical statues etc) my mum would ensure that every child won something. And I think that was reasonable with a group of 5 year olds.

I wouldn’t. It sends a really negative message to your child about trying their best etc

Imagine growing up and realising all of your achievements were because mummy 'cheated 'on you behalf.....

Absolutely this 😒
No way would I agree.

No. Make your own way in life.

It depends on so much, the age of the children, the nature of the game.

I don't think it's necessarily awful to say some things you have won it once and it would mean so much to X why don't you let them win. But I don't know how easy it would be to make it clear to dc that this only applies to very meaningless games... and obviously meaningless to an adult isn't the same as meaningless to dc!