Should they let us win?

Last week I posted an article about playing different games and sports with your kids that posed some questions around the effort approach and how to go about winning or letting the kids win - read it here.

As it happens, this is the follow up as it's just been reversed on me.

I was never much of a chess player growing up, however through the years, I managed to understand the concept and the rules. Interestingly, I got much more obsessed with backgammon (or shesh-besh) as they call it in the Middle East. Think I played 20K+ games in my gap year while traveling.?

My 15-year-old though, has picked it up in recent years and asked me if I wanted to play. Of course, I obliged.

To say that I was terrible was an understatement. He was schooling me quickly but then as I seemingly got frustrated at myself, he began to withdraw his chess mastery and teach me some of the core strategies. When I was considering my move, I thought I was a step ahead, and here he is 4 steps ahead of me.?

I even won my first game the other day. I’m confident that he didn’t try as hard as he could and certainly took a more laid-back approach to the game.

After all, he was doing to me what I had done to him. (and his brothers). You know, if I had kept playing and kept losing, I probably would have given up and declared that chess wasn't for me. However, after he started explaining things and providing advice and patience so that I could learn and develop my own self-belief that I could win as well, I started to believe it myself.

There are numerous forms of belief. The amount one needs depends on what is at stake and is a question that only you can answer. It can come from both internal and external sources.

It simply demonstrates that obtaining 100% of one's needs from inside and 100% of one's needs from outside sources is both impossible, but working through an approach where it's a mix of things that all influence the enjoyment of the process, makes it all more satisfying, enjoyable and in short lots of fun.?

Learning and interacting like this allows for the guard to come down, be present and confidence/trust gets built together. I’m lucky to be his father (just like I am with his brothers and mother), and I’m sure to tell them that.

Also, when you’re playing together and learning also, incredibly amusing laughing moments appear that are simply priceless. You just don’t know where they will come from but when they do, pause and soak it up. We are the fortunate ones.