Teaching Children to Lose

Today Biggest Littlesheep had a tennis match (well four games in a team) and whilst it wasn’t quite the success that he was hoping for but I was very proud that apart from some tears after his third game (which coincided with being hit in the face with the ball at match point) he coped well with losing.

So how can we help children learn to cope with losing when they are playing games?

Here are our top tips:

• Sometimes play games of chance and explain that winning sometimes depends on luck not on skill
• Emphasize improvement – in sports keep track of improvement and personal bests such as furthest throw, longest rally or fastest time not the final ranking on that particular day and in game playing congratulate them on a strategic move or coming close to winning
• Sometimes before you play a game agree on a prize for the loser (e.g. choosing dinner or what DVD to watch later) to make losing the better option
• When your child loses offer to play again and model good winning e.g. saying “well tried” / “good game” to the loser
• Model ‘good losing’ – act upset but philosophical saying things like “oh no I wanted to win, oh well next time I’ll beat you”
• Explain (and label) the emotions your child is feeling – angry, upset, frustrated, sad; tell them it is okay to feel like this but no one wins all the time
• Be careful about the messages you send – obviously if your child is playing competitive sports with other children you want them to do well and to win but make sure that you reiterate that you are proud of them whatever the result and that they can only do their best on the day
• Remind them that even the professionals / best players lose sometimes!
• If your child has a run of ‘losing’ try playing lots of games in quick succession so that they can see that the loss is a blip rather than a permanent feature
• Start practicing simple games with your children as young as you can so that they soon realise it is fun to play not just win – our favourite first games are Spotty Dogs, Game of Ladybirds, Dotty Dinosaurs and Shopping List.

I’m a finalist in the MAD Blog Awards and I hope that I will be a good loser but obviously like all the finalists I would love to be a winner – so if you haven’t yet voted and you like reading my blog please visit http://www.the-mads.com/ and cast your vote. Thank you.