To not let kids win?

[Sprogonthetyne]

When I play something competitive with the kids, I play to win, not super seriously or necessarily putting in full effort, but I don't intentionally lose. Today it was at swimming, I was playing collect the sinkies against two 7yo's, but I do the same when it's a board or card game.

Do other people do the same, or should I be letting them win to build up their confidence?

We balance out the unfair advantage in the set up of the game. With the sinkies, the fact there were two of them and only only one of me, to my mind, balanced out the fact I'm a better swimmer, so after that it was competitive. In other games I might give them an agreed head start, more/less starting pieces, play in 1 adult + 1 child teams or just not play with them until they're older.

There was also an eliminate of chancing the sinkies game, as they had points to add up, so it was possible to find the most and still lose. They won maybe 30-40% of rounds, so they weren't losing every time, but DS got a bit grumpy that I had won more, so I was trying to work out if I should throw the game next time, or just work with him on accepting thet he won't always win.