Making up the Rules

I have discovered that my 4-year-old Hannah has an amazing knack for making up rules for her play so that she always wins. Whether it’s seeing who can finish their dinner first, or seeing who will win a board game, my kid can twist things until she is the grand champion. She really seems to like winning. Who can blame her?

The good thing is that Hannah can be magnanimous in her victory. Sometimes she sets it up so that we both win. It doesn’t seem that a loser is strictly necessary, so long as she’s a winner. Perhaps she’s been poisoned by the culture we live in, where everyone gets a gold star for trying. She believes that we can all be victorious and that defeat is simply unnecessary.

I worried briefly that allowing my daughter to indulge her love of winning would damage her. That it would set her up for devastation when she inevitably doesn’t win. We all encounter defeat at some point in our lives, and I know my kid will be no different.

Don’t let the cute face fool you, this kid is a ruthless competitor!

But then I decided that it’s OK. We’re talking about her play, here. She’s crafting herself a magical world where horses fly and kittens talk and she always wins. What harm is there in letting her do that? It seems like a pretty normal developmental stage. I remember my sister as a preschooler playing chess (I kid you not) with her friend and saying, “It’s my house so the rules are I get all the turns.”

In the long run I think this behaviour is self-correcting. Eventually my sister’s friend didn’t want to play with her so much, because who wants to play a game that can never be won? And my sister, like all children, learned the value of fairness. If you want someone to treat you well, you have to treat them well too. I am happy to report that my sister is now a functioning adult who does not create arbitrary rules for chess.

I can talk to my kid about fairness, and being gracious in defeat. But there’s nothing fair about parenting young kids. There is no give and take. I can’t take my ball and go home because Hannah’s not playing nice. And I don’t think that’s my role. I’m here to give her unconditional love, keep her safe and fed, and provide a good example. I’m not here to play tit-for-tat with a preschooler. Hopefully my own example of how I handle losing will sink in, as I allow my child to win. That by watching me she will learn how to handle losing herself.

For now all I know for sure is that I simply cannot win at ‘who can eat this popsicle fastest’. Even when any objective party can see I’ve got Hannah beat by a mile I still lose. I guess it’s one of those sports that has been tainted by corrupt judges, like ice dancing and professional wrestling.

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