Letting your child(ren) win

[Mr_Rockhead]

You know, I was going to let this slide, but I kept coming back to the notion that you don’t come here to have a little fun (as well as partake in serious discussion).

Humor is not a significant part of my life and hasn't been for more than a quarter century. Fun is only slightly more of a part of my life than humor.

No offense, but, when I look at your avatar and read some of your posts, I get a mental picture of Marvin the robot (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and I come apart. And I can only imagine what some must think of me - both good and bad. So I am only half convinced that you really don’t see any entertainment value in doing this.

Marvin is probably a relatively fair comparison, to be honest. Actually, I don't think much one way or the other about most of the posters here. There are a few I'd call friends; more who have earned there way onto the Ignore List and the rest are pretty much non-entities in terms of anything more than their posts.

Regardless of your political persuasion, please include me in your “friends” category because I really can’t figure you out and I want to get to know you better.

And, you really do have that “Marvin” thing down pat.

 

[Mr_Rockhead]

We never "let" our kids win, but we are also careful to play games with them in which they have a reasonable chance of winning on their own. When they're just starting out, that means playing kids' games aimed at their age level, where winning is more about the luck of the dice roll than anything else, and using the opportunity to teach them as much as possible about things like reading, counting, and planning ahead. As they get older, we advance them through more complicated games, and rather than engineering or faking a win for them, we explain to them their various choices and the likely consequences, so that they learn tactics and strategizing. It doesn't take all that long before they're able to generate their own wins.

So you really go to town on the hungry hungry hippos lever to make sure you get more marbles than the tikes huh? That doesn't sound very nice to me.

You know, we are talking about games here (so I don’t think it really matters as long as the kids are having fun).

 

[Anachronism]

Regardless of your political persuasion, please include me in your “friends” category because I really can’t figure you out and I want to get to know you better.

I will warn you in advance, getting to know me too well can be dangerous to one's physical, emotional, and mental health. You have been warned.

And, you really do have that “Marvin” thing down pat.

I would suggest that Marvin has the Anachronism thing down pat, but then again I am a little narcicistic.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

My dad never let me win. I found it very discouraging. It also killed skills.

My boy's grandfather is a chess shark, but he lets the boy win a few and is good about demonstrating the points of the game after. So I never got good at chess, but my boy could beat me by age 12 Even though I have the same no prisoners attitude my dad had.

 

[Mr_Rockhead]

Regardless of your political persuasion, please include me in your “friends” category because I really can’t figure you out and I want to get to know you better.

I will warn you in advance, getting to know me too well can be dangerous to one's physical, emotional, and mental health. You have been warned.

And, you really do have that “Marvin” thing down pat.

I would suggest that Marvin has the Anachronism thing down pat, but then again I am a little narcicistic.

Cool.

Also, by the way, I had a very close friend in the navy who had one of them full-forehead/half-scalp birthmarks who managed to get a lot more girls then I ever did (and, believe me, Mr_Rockhead certainly got his share). So it’s not about birthmarks and that kind of thing. Nope, it never has been.

Looking forward to debating with you.

 

[Mr_Rockhead]

My dad never let me win. I found it very discouraging. It also killed skills.

...

How do you know your dad didn’t actually help you develop skills and that you were simly not that good at the games?

 

[Cecilie1200]

I'm just glad to see so many of you still play games with your kids, instead of letting them sit around playing video games all day!

With the teens we now play Trivial Pursuit a few times a week, 2 adults and 3 teens, they love playing it, and so do we!

Are you kidding? The first thing out of my husband's mouth when each of our boys were born was, "Oh, boy! I can't wait to teach them 40K!" He views them as gaming buddies-in-training, and it thrills him no end that our oldest boy, Nicky, has turned out to be as big a geek as he is. Both he and my boyfriend have a great fondness for geeky board games that require more than two people, and Nicky makes a convenient and eager extra for any game they're willing to teach him. I suspect the youngest, Quinn, is going to be a lot more interested in sports and physically-oriented games, but Sean is already working on teaching him the basics of catching and throwing in anticipation of Little League.

 

[Cecilie1200]

We never "let" our kids win, but we are also careful to play games with them in which they have a reasonable chance of winning on their own. When they're just starting out, that means playing kids' games aimed at their age level, where winning is more about the luck of the dice roll than anything else, and using the opportunity to teach them as much as possible about things like reading, counting, and planning ahead. As they get older, we advance them through more complicated games, and rather than engineering or faking a win for them, we explain to them their various choices and the likely consequences, so that they learn tactics and strategizing. It doesn't take all that long before they're able to generate their own wins.

So you really go to town on the hungry hungry hippos lever to make sure you get more marbles than the tikes huh? That doesn't sound very nice to me.

We don't own "Hungry Hungry Hippos". I've never seen the point to it, and there are any number of games on the market for young children that are fun AND educational.

"Nice" has never been of any concern to me whatsoever. Aspiring to be "nice" is like aspiring to be mediocre.

 

[Cecilie1200]

We never "let" our kids win, but we are also careful to play games with them in which they have a reasonable chance of winning on their own. When they're just starting out, that means playing kids' games aimed at their age level, where winning is more about the luck of the dice roll than anything else, and using the opportunity to teach them as much as possible about things like reading, counting, and planning ahead. As they get older, we advance them through more complicated games, and rather than engineering or faking a win for them, we explain to them their various choices and the likely consequences, so that they learn tactics and strategizing. It doesn't take all that long before they're able to generate their own wins.

So you really go to town on the hungry hungry hippos lever to make sure you get more marbles than the tikes huh? That doesn't sound very nice to me.

You know, we are talking about games here (so I don’t think it really matters as long as the kids are having fun).

They're children. That means, whether you're aware of it or not, EVERYTHING they do is a learning experience. That's just how they're designed. One might as well recognize and accept it, and make use of that fact in a constructive way.

But as it happens, I think that usually means keeping the kids themselves from realizing that they're learning.