Teaching good sportsmanship is important. In my profession as a child and youth worker this was one of the social skills we worked on the most with young kiddos.
Handling loosing and congratulating the opponent.
How to handle loosing. Self regulation.
Finding balance is good.
I wouldn’t want someone to let me win.
I want to truly earn my win by my own doing.
Providing constructive criticism along the way is good. Providing feedback. Ways they can do better.
My daughter is also 3. We don’t play video games, but we play other games, including physical ones like tag… or lately, Frozen tag, where it’s just regular tag but my kiddo is Elsa and she freezes us haha.
(I always seem to be assigned the role of Marshmallow though… hmm…)
We usually balance out who wins, but always approach it to point out where she’s improved from the last time, or mention that she really tried hard and that’s why she won, or point out a mistake that I made (I got distracted by the iPad and maybe that’s why you caught me!) as a subtle way of teaching her.
I have to temper myself, as I’m very obviously “good cop” haha… so I always want to spoil her, but that will teach her to expect to always get her way in life, and sadly that’s just not how it works.
Even if we beat her at whatever game we’re playing, it’s always a fun time for everyone… we make sure of that.
Be sure to make a point to play single player games with him, to tackle victory/achievement in another angle. The two of you can build his problem solving skills and his sense of adventure and exploration without challenging his motivation (depending on the difficulty of the game). Some of my fondest moments with my Dad growing up was playing Super Mario 64.
As far as playing against him on a game like Mario Kart, convey the message that you have gotten good with experience and practice, and that it’s easily possible for him too. But emphasize the importance of balanced training like 1-Player grand prixs or time-trials to learn fundamentals properly. Beginner athletes generally don’t compete against Olympians – our best performance comes in the middle channel of the ‘Flow State’ diagram.
Happy gaming to you two!
From my point of view I can speak to you as a son and younger brother (I am the youngest of 4 children) and I have played with both my parents and my brothers (especially my older brother). What really mattered was that someone used their time to play with me and have fun regardless of the outcome.
I can assure you that I really lost a lot when I was little but then I also became very good at it, I tried several games (mainly MMORPGs) in which the difficulty becomes higher as your character levels up and you gain experience, I played at table football and FIFA with my brother and I always lost, I played adventure games and got lost until someone helped me in the game or I tried so hard that I managed to find the way on my own. The result is that I have become the best among my friends at games (except COD because I have never played it), but there have been definitely more times in which I have lost.
I think it is important that they win sometimes to give them the right motivation to give their best, but it is important that the difficulty is gradually increased and above all that they enjoy that game, it is right to lose and make mistakes to learn that in this way you become more good, and that it creates the desire to want to overcome one’s limit in a game and give the best of oneself. I hope my advice from my point of view can help you🙏🏻
No-Drama Discipline Workbook by Daniel J Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
No-Drama Discipline by Daniel J Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
Whole Brain Child Workbook by Daniel J Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
Whole Brain Child by Daniel J Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
And Baby Makes Three by John Gottman