Our kids have sometimes had trouble playing board games. They all just want to win so bad that someone almost always ends up crying when the game doesn't go his or her way. At first it was games like Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders; however, with some practice they got pretty good at being good sports. Recently, we have started to teach Julia, Ethan, and Christian a few more grown up games like checkers and Uno. Unfortunately the tears have returned so we haven't played those games all that much. When Grandma and Grandpa Little were here this last week some of those games came back out. As a result, a few "time outs" ended up being issued. Since then, Rebecca and I have been trying to play more of these games with them to help them learn to be okay with losing with them as well.
Today, Rebecca was playing Uno with Christian and Ethan while I was playing checkers with Julia. A few times I heard Ethan start to complain, but overall everyone was doing much better than previous times. When Julia and I finished up, I started watching their game. I noticed that Christian had a bunch of draw twos and other really good cards. After a few turns, Christian had to play a draw two on Ethan, but instead he reached for a new card from the pile. Julia called him out on it, but he refused to play the card on Ethan - he didn't want to make his brother sad.
Christian (4) is my superhero today for placing the feelings of Ethan above his own interest in winning the game.
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