Teaching Grace

We are at that point in Lauren’s life where we are trying to teach her grace, understanding and sportsmanship. I firmly believe that we shouldn’t “let” her win all the time or really even at all. When we play games I of course don’t set out to beat her but I do want her to learn to be a good teammate and to handle not winning with grace. I know that it is good for her self esteem to win but I think it is better if she wins because she’s earned it.

She loves to race. We race getting dressed, heading to the car, buckling the car seats, all sorts of things and often times she beats me and often times I beat her. I have found that she likes to declare a race when she is way ahead or already done. This presents Brian and I with the challenge of teaching grace.

When we play a game and she gets upset because she is losing I always make sure to tell her it’s ok to not win every time that it is still fun to play the game and to be happy for the person who is winning. Plus you never know, you could come back and win in the end!

This morning as I was taking them in to daycare she says to me “It’s a race and I need to get ahead of you before we start because it’s my race!” I responded with “Hey that’s not the way it works, we have to start from the same place in order for it to be a fair race.” She immediately stopped, came back to where I was and then said let’s race! I couldn’t have been more proud of her. I think she may be starting to get it. I know that really this is a lifelong lesson that every person has to learn however I hope that by starting on it early with her it will benefit her down the road.

How have you taught your children this life lesson? Or how have you learned this yourself?