Monday 27 August 2018

Playing Monopoly: did I set a bad example for my daughter?


I'm not sure if this is something worth worrying about, but I thought I'd throw it out to the Reddit gods and goddesses. If it's not worth worrying about, maybe it'll give a few chuckles to a few folks.Anyway, my eleven year-old daughter loves to play Monopoly with me, but as she enters adolescence she has an adolescent's desire to mess with things. When we played yesterday, she said she wanted to play "with scams". By that she meant try to cheat each other when we made change, collected rent, etc. I was kind of dubious about that, but I try to accomodate her sort-of craziness, and went along with it.Now, before I go any further I should mention that I was obsessed with Monopoly at a very young age, and memorized the game more thoroughly than I have ever memorized anything. Without looking at the board even, I can tell you which dice roll will get you to which other square from any existing square. Roll 7 from Pennsylavania Railroad? That's Chance. 11 from New York Avenue--go to jail. And so on. She has always known that, although dad might not be an expert in everything, when it comes to moving Monopoly pieces, he is always right.So, we played a mostly normal game of Monopoly with a few tricks like giving a $10 bill instead of a $100 bill, "forgetting" to pay for a property you are buying, etc. She eventually landed on two of my hotel properties back to back and said "I resign, you win!' Then I smiled and said no, we were playing with scams like she suggested, and she needed to go back and check if rolling seven when you are on North Carolina Avenue (as I had done two turns earlier) really would take you to Go.Of course she had had a hotel on Boardwalk. I would have lost immediately if I had moved my token to the correct space.Her reaction was, er, dramatic. I'm not sure if she was actually unhappy or not. But I wonder, how far do you go in always teaching your kids that honesty is best, and when do you mess with them a little to have some fun (and maybe teach them a bit about being on the lookout for, er, unscrupulous people)? I want to raise an honest, ethical kid, but also one who is wise to the ways of the world and can take a good joke.Anyway, thanks for reading. Any thoughts are welcome. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2NrpNii

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