to not let my dd win at games

[mommy2ash]

my dd is eight she got draughts for Christmas and is asking people to play constantly. my friend played with her and let her win straight away. then I played properly and my friend said it was a bit mean to beat her. I didn't just wipe her off the board but explained the whole point of the game is problem solving and thinking ahead we only had one piece each at the end. also she is an only child so I don't want her to get used to just winning all the time it makes life harder for her with friends nobody likes a sore loser.

do you just let your child win?

Actually, the more I think about it, I think anyone who says they 'never' let their dc win is talking bollocks.

You've never played snap with a two year old and slowed your reaction times? Never had a race in the garden with your toddler and slowed down? Not done an Easter Egg Hunt and wandered around, ignoring all the obvious eggs going 'Oh where are they?'

My eye you haven't.

When I bought DS draughts for the first time, he was approximately 5 yrs old. I showed him how to play and for the first few games, I asked him to think carefully about the moves he was about to make, showed him the consequences if he made the move he intended to etc, and then after a handful of games, when he was getting the hang of it, I always played to win. I am rubbish at draughts anyway so it was pretty equal for a while.
Within a short space of time, I truly couldn't beat him. He remains very good at the game.
What I didn't do, which with hindsight I wish I had done, was to teach him that sometimes it is nice to let other dc win.
By playing to win, I didn't teach him how to be a good loser, I only taught him to excel at what he did so that he didn't face losing. He is in his mid 20's now and still finds it incredibly difficult to lose. He enjoys a challenge but he'd rather not play at all if it is too challenging.
By letting other people win sometimes, and teaching others how to lose gracefully, I believe that would have taught him something valuable too, which playing to win didn't teach him.

It is according to age. I was responding to the 8yr old and draughts. The answer to a 2 yr old and snap would be different.
I would not let tne 8 yr old win but would not be deadly competitive. She will learn by seeing different tactics and once she sharpens up she can win properly.
With a 2 yr old the winning isn't important and I would make it fun and make sure we both got plenty of snaps.

I never let the DCs win all the time, but equally, I didn't play to win all the time.

Either extreme is wrong. If you want to encourage a child, some wins are a good motivation.

And with some games now, they are just as good as me, so we all play to win, and the outcome isn't predictable.

I was all prepared to 'let' my 2 year old win at a new game we played today, but didn't get the chance as he completely thrashed me (admittedly at a game of pure luck!). He then started to win the next game (again, not through my intervention) and got sad because he didn't want to win against me, so threw the cards everywhere and stropped upstairs to 'be on his own for a bit'. So, I'm not really sure what happened there, but if I'd never let him win at anything, we would have had much less mileage out of games like hide and seek or 'who can get their shoes on first'.

We play a lot of board games and while we'll help DC with strategy in a game of chess, for instance, we won't let them win for the sake of it. If they win a game, fantastic, but if not, they enjoy it just the same.

A mum at school always let her son win at everything. You should have seen the public tantrum he threw at his first school sports day when he wasn't top dog, it was embarrassing.