By Tracy Laverick – Enriching Parenting
How letting your child win at home can help them to enjoy school!
One way of keeping your child’s cup full of confidence at home is to let them take the upper hand in games and activities.
Spoiler alert! Your child already knows that you are able to win. They know you are stronger and wiser. But that is why feeling that they are beating you makes them feel so good!! It is also what can really get laughter going. For both of you!
In school, children are expected to be learning new things all the time. They start each day with things that they can’t do. They feel pride and success when they achieve a new skill and most children are amazingly resilient to the failures they have along the way.
That is because…
Children are already experts at failing. If you picture a young child learning to walk, they fail time and time again. Once they have success, they do it that way again until they have mastered that skill. The success was new.
Whereas, we adults are experts at success. We succeed often, whether it is driving to the office or reading a book. As we fail less often, we are better at learning from failure. As we go through childhood, we make the transition from learning from success to be able to learn from failure.
Every child is different, and I know from my own children that it can be my older child that struggles with failure more than my younger. So lots of success at home is vital. Our yoga plank competitions are something to behold and always end in giggles. I am a resolute failure (even trying really hard!) and she can beat the whole family. Having these opportunities to feel the most competent helps her to have some resilience for when she can’t do something at school.
With young children letting them be able to push you over when you are wrestling, or letting them see the snap a nano second before you do, gets them laughing and feeling good. This is also a good way of connecting with teenagers. They will have lots of areas that they are more competent at than their parents- what new things can they teach you?
I used to hate playing board games. I felt under pressure to perform well and worried what others would think. Now I play hard to lose I have freed myself from those concerns. I am happy to play a board game and let my children take charge. As their skills increase I have to work harder to keep up with them.
Then you reach the day where they really are beating you, but you are laughing and enjoying your time together. Helping both you and them with the stresses and strains of daily life.