I Wish I Had Never 'Let' My Kid Win

When my son was little, I used to let him win board games a lot. By a lot, I mean always, because I do not have the patience for the emotional roller-coaster that is playing Chutes and Ladders with a toddler. 

“Oh look, you win again!” was an oft-repeated phrase as we ignored all the rules to expedite his race to the finish line of whatever game we were playing. The efficiency alone made it worth the lies. 

Sure, you can go up all the ladders regardless of what number you spin. Yes, the point of Monopoly is to simply make it around the board once. Of course, you are highly skilled at games of luck which only require the rolling of dice. 

To be honest, I didn’t really think through the consequences of my lazy parenting, because arguing about the rules of board games with young children is about as productive as trying to prove the existence of the patriarchy to a mansplainer on Twitter. 

It simply wasn’t worth my time and effort. Toddlerdom is about picking your battles, and this one was not high on my list of priorities. I was more than happy to whiz through a game of hi-ho-cherry-o so we could get on to other, less mind-numbingly tedious activities. 

The truth is, I wasn’t a big fan of board games. I would much rather spend an afternoon bike riding or going to the park or making some Pinterest project that would surely end in utter disaster and lots of crying. Skipping over the rules and letting my son head straight for the finish line made us both happy, so no harm done, right? No. 

Despite the fact that he is fully capable of seeing that we are all playing by the same rules, he is fairly insistent on the fact that his 3-year-old sister is somehow cheating. Telling him that this is not true only makes him angrier and more convinced of conspiracy. 

My method was all well and good until it wasn’t anymore. Letting him win didn’t seem like such a big deal at the time, but to his great misfortune, he is not an only child. Now he has a sister who also gets to play games, so we have to abide by some type of rules to establish order and fairness. 

I’m starting to see that letting my son win all the time was a very bad plan. Now we have to deal with the belated rage of a kindergartner learning that he is not, in fact, especially gifted or talented in non-skill-based games. His sister has just as good a chance of winning as he does, and the resulting tantrums are epic.

My son’s current favorite thing to yell at me is that I’m not being fair, and it makes him really mad. It’s dawning on me that if I don’t turn things around in a hurry, I am basically raising the fragile white male of my nightmares.

Despite the fact that he is fully capable of seeing that we are all playing by the same rules, he is fairly insistent on the fact that his 3-year-old sister is somehow cheating. Telling him that this is not true only makes him angrier and more convinced of conspiracy. 

So yeah, he’s basically a tiny Trump right now, which is distressing on all sorts of levels.

But I take solace in the fact that at least I have some control in this situation — I make the rules, I get to enforce fairness, he has to listen to my attempts to instill goodness in him, even when he doesn’t like it. And in the midst of the tantrums and rage, I can remind myself that at least his behavior is age appropriate. He’ll grow out of this phase — which is more than I can say for some.