Don’t Purposely Let Your Child Beat You in a Game

Don’t purposely let your child beat you in a game.

Let’s say you are playing checkers with your four-year-old. You may be tempted to let him or her win. Why am I against that? Checkers is a complex game. When our son was four, I didn’t want him to think that a four-year-old could beat an adult at a complicated game. I wanted him to learn that becoming skilled at something takes work and practice. If he can beat me at checkers or pool at a young age, without hard work, he might think he can master reading after a few days in school.

Also, like I said in my post about doing your kids’ homework for them, if you let your child beat you in a game, you are robbing him or her of the sense of accomplishment of winning without help. Until our son was about eight, I could beat him in video games. One day, he beat me, and I could see how proud he was. He knew he won on his own. Soon, of course, I couldn’t beat him in any video game. As I write this post, he is at a video game tournament. I don’t play him any more.

It is tempting to let your child win. You might feel that it will make them feel the thrill of winning. That might work once, but kids are smart. They will soon figure it out. They might beat you routinely at Mario Kart but lose to all their friends. Make them earn it.

As Ryan Holiday says in The Obstacle Is The Way, overcoming obstacles is what makes us better. If your kid can beat you at chess without trying, why would he work harder to be better at chess? I doubt Tiger Woods’s father let him win at golf. I am sure neither the Williams sisters never let each other win when they were growing up. They fought to beat each other, and that made them better.

In life, you have to earn your college degree, your job, or your promotion. (At least, I hope that is still true.) Why should you purposely let your child beat you in a game?