Winning and losing games
Board games, races, the last round of tiggy. This is about what happens to the game after somebody wins, not about minding less.
Winning and losing
Somebody wins and somebody does not. What happens next decides whether there is another game.
For grown-ups
What this pack teaches
Losing feels bad, and this pack does not argue with that. What it practises is the bit straight afterwards: what somebody does next, and whether a second game is still possible.
Games are where most friendships are actually made, and losing is the part that ends them early. The useful distinction is not between minding and not minding — every child minds — but between what a losing player does and what the game can survive. Changing the rules halfway, or walking off mid-round, ends the game for everybody. Saying “that was close, again?” does not.
- Ask for another go.
- Agree the rules before the game begins.
- Say out loud when you want to stop.
- Keep the rules the same all game.
- Let the other person finish their turn.
How to use this
- Sit next to your child rather than opposite them. This works best as a thing you do together, not a thing you set them.
- Read the speech bubbles aloud if that helps. Nothing here needs to be read independently.
- Talk about the picture before the buttons. “What's happening here?” is often more useful than the sorting itself.
- Five situations is a session. Stopping after two is a fine session too.
Practising away from the screen
- Play short games you can lose in three minutes. Snap, Uno, a running race to the letterbox — the shorter the game, the more chances to practise the end of one.
- Lose out loud yourself — “ah, you got me, again?” said by a grown-up is the single most useful thing in this pack.
- Agree what happens at the end before you begin: one more game, or that is the last one. A game with an agreed ending is much easier to leave.
Things you can say in the moment
- “You really wanted to win that one. Do you want another go, or are we done?”
- “I know. I hate losing too.”
- “The rules stay the same until the end. We can change them for the next game if you like.”
- “Do you want to stop now, or finish this round first?”
What not to push
- Nobody has to pretend to be pleased about losing. “Good game” said through gritted teeth is not the skill; asking for another go, or saying you are done, is.
- Stopping a game is always allowed, mid-game included. Saying “I am stopping now” and walking away is a different thing from tipping the board over.
- Crying about a lost game is not the thing being sorted here. The cards are about what happens to the game, never about what a face is doing.
If this pack is hard today
If a real game has just gone badly, leave this for another day. A pack about losing is not readable in the ten minutes after losing, and using it then teaches your child that it is a telling-off.
Nothing is counted
No marks, no tally, no percentage, nothing saved. A child who taps the other mat gets exactly the same screen as a child who did not, because the explanation is the point and the tap is only how they get to it.
Social situations depend on the people in them. Everything here is one common way things tend to go, not a rule — and a child who reads a situation differently from us may well be reading their own life correctly.
Social situations depend on the people in them. Everything here is one common way things tend to go, not a rule. This is an educational resource, not therapy or medical advice.