Advice Needed

My daughter is a fierce competitor.  Everything, and I mean everything can be turned to a competition with her.  Last weekend when we were driving back to the camp site from training camp, Scott and I drove my parents van and let my parents follow us with the kids in our van. We pulled in to Dairy Queen as a fun surprise and she says to my dad, “Now’s your chance to beat them… keep driving Papa!”

Not only does she thrive on competition, but the girl cares a lot and I mean A LOT about winning.  This of course means that she also hates to lose.  At anything… getting to the van, tic tac toe, Uno….  We’ve worked a lot this past year on her temper and I have seen her  mature and grow a lot. 

Lately, her way to ensure that she always wins, is by refusing to play any game that is as she calls it “a winner/loser game.”  If there is a chance she can lose, she doesn’t want to play… Tic-tac-toe, Wii, Uno, Hi Ho Cherrio, you name it… her response is always, “I’ll just watch I don’t like winning/losing games.” 

I applaud the fact that she recognizes the fact that she doesn’t like losing and thus since she can’t guarantee a win, she’s removing the obstacle at hand.   In a way, it shows a self awareness and even an element of self control. 

But, she has to learn to lose graciously.  She can’t always win.  In fact it’s one reason why I love my kids playing sports.  I love that they learn to work on a team and they learn to win and lose.    But, at her age, they don’t keep score in soccer, so she hasn’t really had to learn to lose. 

I don’t know how to teach her.  I don’t want her to just not play.   Her older brother has graciously offered to promise to lose when they play games just because he’s desperate for a playmate and it’s the only way she’ll agree.    But not only is that not fair to her, it isn’t teaching her anything either.  She can’t go out in the world and expect other kids to agree to lose for her.   So, do I force her to play these “winner/loser games” that she doesn’t want to play so that she’ll get experience losing?  (hmmm sounds like 2 battles waiting for me) 

Any of you out there have experience with this that you can pass along?  The easy thing to do would be just let her not play, but I don’t think that is what she needs.