Playing to Lose

Recently Cambel has been more interested in playing board games with us (the sub-zero temperatures have of course helped). In the past when we played a game, he was content just to play. His idea of "winning" was just finishing. So he was thrilled when I won, and then he won. We just played until everyone won and everyone was happy. But somehow in the last day or two, Cambel has crossed another invisible line in childhood that divides the blissfully unaware child from the painfully aware and extremely competitive child. I guess there are a lot of these lines as you navigate through life, and part of me is happy that Cambel crosses them. It is nice when he can put his coat on himself, or get his own drink, or run out to check the mail. But there is a bittersweetness to this growth that each mom knows. And so it is now. 

We were playing "Chutes and Ladders" (which, on a side note, has to be the longest game ever invented for small children. And whose idea was it anyway to add a chute on box #87 that takes you all the way down to #24? Seriously, this game is never ending!)  Amazingly enough, I managed to make my way to the end. I expected Cambel to announce my victory and then work on his. Instead he burst into tears and was inconsolable. I had won and he had lost. He was aware, and it nearly broke his heart. 

He eventually recovered, and was even able to play again tonight with both Kevin and me. He talked a lot about "beating us up" (his words for winning) and wasn't upset when I won again (yes, I clearly have skills)--mainly because he was so happy that I had "beat up" Daddy.  But he will never go back to thinking that everyone can win and no one loses. 

And now it is our job as parents to teach him the art of winning as well as losing. I think the latter is the more difficult to teach and to learn. But in the end my prayer for Cambel is that he will live in such as way as to win, but also be able to lose with grace...that he will see the joy in just being a part of the game (and clearly we are talking about more than Chutes and Ladders here).