You should play games with your children... and you should win

My friend’s six-year-old son was bragging to me about what a great chess player he was. It wasn’t the first time.

And he asks me if I'm a good chess player. I say, “Well, I guess I’m average for a grown man. I'm probably good compared to a six-year-old.” He says, “Nobody can beat me. I played my dad 200 times (he's a lawyer), and he only won twice.”

And then he keeps pushing and wants to play me so I finally relent and we sit down with his brother watching and start a game.

As we play, I can see he's a pretty solid little chess player, but he has no strategy. I also realize after about 5 minutes that his dad was likely letting him win. And a few minutes later, I win the game. And he's shocked. He doesn't understand, and his brother, who's two years older and was trying to help him, is also surprised that I won.

This popular idea that we will build a child’s confidence by letting them win at things is horribly misguided. It not only creates in them a false sense of their own ability, it hides from them the true nature of their parents and adults in general. And in so doing, we undermine what should be a natural ability to recognize and learn from us.

There is a natural hierarchy that flows from a simple recognition of seeing something for what it actually is. Your parents are better at most things because they’re older, more experienced, and wiser. You can trust them. They’ve got this until you get older. This is natural hierarchy, and it’s necessary for learning and growth. Only then can you happily, voluntarily submit to learn and listen.

Children have been artificially recognized, so fully, at such a young age, it’s scary. All the IG posts I see about the sage-like wisdom of someone’s 4-year-old. We are making our children into our Gods. It’s too much pressure. You need to look no further to find the source of the anxiety many of them are experiencing.