This is topic When the debate on modern childraising theories has painful consequences. in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.
Last night as Sasha (my 5 year old son) and I were leaving my parents, and heading toward our van to go home, he decided to race me.
"Let's Race!" he yelled as he took off running.
I smiled and started behind him.
Suddenly I was stuck with a deep parental debate.
Would it be better to allow him to win this race, thus increasing his self-esteem and hence making him a better person, or should I teach him the true value of winning only comes with the possibility of loosing, by exerting my best effort to win. While he has few self-esteem issues, he does have a terrible attitude towards not winning, so some corrective measures need to be taken. On the other hand, the distance we were racing was not that long, and I had already wasted much of my chance of winning by maintaining this internal debate.
Sasha looked back at me and saw the internal debate going on inside my mind. Perhaps he deduced that I was considering a true challenge to his racing abilities, or perhaps he saw that I was increasing my speed. Either way, he decided to increase his speed, to sprint to the end and win the race. As he turned back to look where he was going, like a rocket he leapt forward with a sudden burst of speed....
right into the grill of the van.
Smack. Crash. Fall. Ouch.
Luckilly, the old time parenting tool was still valid. Some magic kisses from papa and the boo-boos went away.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Ouch.
My answer is you let little children win in things like races because, subconciously, they know you can run faster than you do. Alternatively you can just win. You should never run as fast as you can when racing small children. They know that's unfair.
You can make a joke out of it. "Ah! He's beating me! Must... run... faster..." (this can end with either, "Yay! done it! ha ha! *swings child around or applauds child* or "ah, he beat me. But it was soooo close. I'll win next time!")
If you make the winning important but fun it'll seem less crucial both times.
You play fairly in games of chance like snakes and ladders. If he needs to be taught how to lose, let him lose in things where he has a fair chance and play more games like that.