Letting your kids win

I'm a strong believer in not letting your kids win. This is definitely a questionable parenting technique. Most people believe that letting your kids win will give them the self confidence they need to try new things. Actually I believe it's the reverse. Letting your kids win justifies your child’s attitude that if it's not easy to do then it's not worth doing. Now I don't mean you beat them and then do a little victory dance while throwing out comments like "In your face, who's your daddy, you play throw like a five year old girl etc...", instead you should be a good winner (which is a bit of a stretch for me) and encourage them to practice and get better so that they can win to someday too. Already at 5 years old I can see some results in Juliette. One of our favourite games is called catch the daddy. Basically, the daddy (that's me) tries to run away from every little kid at the local playground. The children have the advantage of unlimited endurance and more importantly numbers. It's amazing watching their little brains learn and adapt as the place kids at various points around a structure that I'm on before one of them runs up to flush me out of the trap. Juliette has gotten so good at this game that I need all my wits just to avoid her. At 5 years of age she runs like the wind and never gives up. So yesterday when my brother-in-law’s girlfriend asked me if I enjoyed beating a bunch of kids at Donkey Kong racing on the Nintendo 64, my answer was yes but that’s not really the point.