When you play with your kids, do you let them win?  You really should if they are under the age of 10.  Children between the ages of 4 and 10 are obsessed with the concepts of winning, losing, and fairness.  After all, growing up means giving up all sorts of childhood fantasies that we as parents have always enjoyed.  But, once children begin to dabble in the world of reality testing, they get disappointed, very disappointed and winning fills the gap of a major sense of losing which they all feel.    The losses are huge and widespread during these years.  Wishes to become superheroes, Princes and Princesses, and even your husband or wife, makes us all smile and the list goes on.  But, nothing compares to the wish to be the only child, and this one really hurts the most once they experience the birth of a sibling.  So, kids, like adults, try to find other ways to feel successful and winning is a primary way that kids try to erase their losing pains. It also is a way to build up a healthy ego that they need to have in place in order to make it through the adolescent years without too many scars.  The problem however, is that every other child at their stage of development is on that same page and compete with each other everywhere from the classroom to the football field and they face the music of having to tolerate the fate of reality –  that we win and lose about half the time. (more…)