Guest Author - Elsa Neal

Creativity chat with Kris Bordessa, part 5, on letting kids win at games.

(Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10)

Participants:

Elsa Neal, Creativity Editor, BellaOnline
Kris Bordessa, author of Team Challenges
Megan Romer, Board Games Editor, BellaOnline
Writermom
Bonnie Sayers, Autism Spectrum Disorders Editor, BellaOnline
Candlepassion


Although Megan has left the chat, I wanted to discuss letting children win... Megan wrote an article* about whether or not to let children win at board games, which could apply to any sports or games."

[*Edit: Unfortunately former editor Megan Romer's article is no longer available]


Kris
"It's funny; competition is one thing that I've really tried to downplay with these activities. But my teams always want to know their score – while I don't consider a score to be necessary, the kids often do! "


Elsa
"It's easy to feel sorry for a child who loses continuously - what are your views on deliberately allowing a child to win when playing against an adult?"


Kris
"Well, I think a nice solution is to team up with that kid!"


Writermom
"That's what we do."


Kris
"I don't like the idea of letting kids win, but I also don't like having kids feel badly. Teams are a nice compromise, as are non-competitive games. I might not let a kid win, but I certainly don't have a problem (if we're not teaming up), helping. For instance, we play poker ;-) and, my 10 year old was having a hard time remembering what was a good hand. He let me look at his cards for help. But, I could have then beaten him, you know? But I wouldn't do that. Part of playing is learning.”


Elsa
"That could work for scrabble too. A great way to build vocabulary with a couple of hints."


Writermom
"We do that with scrabble or if we're doing word puzzles with our oldest - help him find the words to make or we'll give him clues as to where to find a word in a search a word puzzle. "


Kris
Writermom, that sounds like the kinds of things we do!


Elsa
“One of the suggestions on Megan’s forum discussion was to play more simply - adults know strategies and tricks which children don't. If you don't use those then the game can be fairer."


Kris
Yep. I love to play games, but I think that adults who play to win - I mean really win - against kids are kind of mean.


Elsa
"And adults can set good examples by being gracious winners and good losers."


Writermom
“Definitely.”


Kris
But, flip side, letting a kid win all of the time can create a monster ;-)


Writermom
Especially with siblings it's not fun for the same person to win all the time.”


Kris
"Yes. I had a terrible time with my boys playing chess - one was clearly at more of an advantage. I finally had to remind him that if he stopped trying so hard to win, and spent some time helping his brother learn, he'd have a nice person to play with.”


Writermom
"That's a great idea!"


Elsa
"That's a good way around the problem"


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Team Challenges by Kris Bordessa is available from Amazon.com

Kris Bordessa is also the author of Tools of the Ancient Greeks : A Kid's Guide to the History & Science of Life in Ancient Greece