My son is 4 now, but ever since he could speak he's wanted to win. Usually that manifests as "first to touch the door wins!" Or "who ever squeezes tighter wins!". I'm not a big fan of this level of competitiveness, but I'm sure I've fostered it somehow. And needless to say, I let him "win" often.When he was 2, he told me he was faster than me and this was the last straw. He challenged me to a race. He lost. We raced again but he had a head start. Again, he lost. It got the point that he was 2 steps away from the finish line and I could still beat him from 20 ft away. He finally couldn't handle it and broke down. He couldn't cope. He cried for nearly half an hour.I should mention that my wife and I have been working hard to help him deal with and embrace failure, but he's been struggling to say the least. I think we've made a breakthrough by redirecting thoughts of failure to what went well and how that feels, and setting appropriate goals (like stop thinking you're faster than someone more than 2 feet taller than you!).So today he told me to run with him to the door to his daycare with no specific goal in mind. I touched the door first thinking nothing about it. He yells from a few feet away "WE BOTH WON". "Ummm no. I clearly won", I said stubbornly. "We weren't racing", he said. "I mean we both won because we love each other"Cue heart melting, and a bunch of hugs. He's completely right -- we all win. via /r/Parenting http://bit.ly/2W0jF3V
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