Games, rules and cheating - Page 2

[laohaire]

I had another thought - maybe I could allow mutual agreement of cheating. But then it's mutual cheating So instead of her getting to win because she's cheating and I'm playing the game, we both cheat. And I don't know how she'll feel about it but I'm quite sure that would get old very fast. I mean, that means every game will be over in a few moves at most (and probably just one after we catch on to cheating) and that's no fun at all. Hence, cheating is no fun.

DD is annoyingly competitive overall, even with cooperative games. DH and I like cooperative games the best, so it's pretty well modelled around here. But we'll be doing a family activity like putting a puzzle together and when the last few pieces are going in DD will announce "I want to win, I want to win!!!" And we'll both be like "It's not about winning, we all work together to do the puzzle!" (FTR we do usually let her put in the last few pieces - they ARE satisfying to do).

[Jessy1019]

We won't play if they won't follow the rules.

My son is 4, and while he doesn't LIKE losing (who does?), he accepts it. If he didn't, we wouldn't play those sorts of games for awhile.

My daughter is 7 . . . if I caught her cheating, I'd end the game and probably not want to play for the rest of the day. She's competitive -- she likes to win and gets excited when she does -- but she also just enjoys playing.

[claras_mom]

Originally Posted by laohaire

DD is annoyingly competitive overall, even with cooperative games. DH and I like cooperative games the best, so it's pretty well modelled around here. But we'll be doing a family activity like putting a puzzle together and when the last few pieces are going in DD will announce "I want to win, I want to win!!!" And we'll both be like "It's not about winning, we all work together to do the puzzle!" (FTR we do usually let her put in the last few pieces - they ARE satisfying to do).

Dd is competitive but she comes by it honestly; dh and I are both the same way. For example, the only way we can play scrabble is to not keep score. S/he who uses all the tiles wins. We both win if we manage to get every single tile placed.

We don't do a lot of board games. For other games--some nature dominos, quirkle (which is basically a variation of dominos), and stuff like that, she's more interested in making up her own rules, which usually means she has some aesthetic in mind, and I'm ok with that.

It's not cheating if you're upfront about making up the new rules.

My best guess is that as dd gets a little older she'll be more interested in learning and following the rules to whatever game we play.