Letting Kids Win
Today in For Better or For Worse, John Patterson learns that his son Michael is not only a kid who has to win to enjoy a game, but has to take no losses whatsoever on the way to that win. The truth to the matter is that little kids like to win games starting out, and if they don’t win them, then they don’t want to play them.
For my little girl, the game is “Tic-Tac-Toe” which has the advantage of being able to be played almost anywhere you have paper and pencil. She always starts first and she always takes the center square. I have learned if you put your first mark after that in the side squares and not the corner squares, your opponent in that situation is almost assured of winning, if they don’t goof it up. The best part after that move, is you can play like you would regularly play, and you will still lose or draw. With my daughter in her young ages, the percentage of wins was about 50%, but the other 50% were draws. She likes Tic-Tac-Toe. Daddy only won, if she really goofed it up.
Checkers is tougher. To lose in checkers, you have to use the art of indirection. You submit a playing piece to be jumped by your opponent, but then you have to move someone else on the board in your next turn, with the hope that your opponent will have realized the piece you moved on the prior turn is jumpable. With young kids, this often does not happen and you end up having to jump your opponent’s pieces in order to keep the game moving.
Now, both my kids play chess. They are older and have different expectations of me. They expect me to win, and they are embarrassed for me, if I don’t win. Daddy is supposed to be better, because he is the Daddy. I wonder if John Patterson ever got to a point where he played an older Michael in checkers. I don't remember one. The last competition I remember was when John took April fishing and she did a lot better than he did.
For my little girl, the game is “Tic-Tac-Toe” which has the advantage of being able to be played almost anywhere you have paper and pencil. She always starts first and she always takes the center square. I have learned if you put your first mark after that in the side squares and not the corner squares, your opponent in that situation is almost assured of winning, if they don’t goof it up. The best part after that move, is you can play like you would regularly play, and you will still lose or draw. With my daughter in her young ages, the percentage of wins was about 50%, but the other 50% were draws. She likes Tic-Tac-Toe. Daddy only won, if she really goofed it up.
Checkers is tougher. To lose in checkers, you have to use the art of indirection. You submit a playing piece to be jumped by your opponent, but then you have to move someone else on the board in your next turn, with the hope that your opponent will have realized the piece you moved on the prior turn is jumpable. With young kids, this often does not happen and you end up having to jump your opponent’s pieces in order to keep the game moving.
Now, both my kids play chess. They are older and have different expectations of me. They expect me to win, and they are embarrassed for me, if I don’t win. Daddy is supposed to be better, because he is the Daddy. I wonder if John Patterson ever got to a point where he played an older Michael in checkers. I don't remember one. The last competition I remember was when John took April fishing and she did a lot better than he did.
posted by howard at 9:48 PM
11 Comments:
I just can't help wondering if it's a total coincidence that Lynn chose a strip where someone accuses John-Rod of cheating.
Heh--I didn't even think of that, Ellie. :)
It's true that children do start out expecting to win all the time. It's equally true that they do grow out of it in the fullness of time. Most of them, that is. From what I've seen of him, Mike never really did. After all, the reason I think he stopped harrassing Liz is that he realized that his friends were bored with it, not because he stopped thinking her presence was unwarranted.
Heh--I didn't even think of that, Ellie. :)
: O Come on, people! You're letting me down : O That's very first thing I thought of when I saw today's strip!
Okay. Okay. Maybe you didn't have your morning coffee yet. Or needed more of it. I'm sure that's it. I'm gonna tell myself that is the reason even if it's not.
Adrianne ; )
adrianne_p and ellie,
I am ashamed to admit I didn't catch that "cheating" line in the right context either. Now, the reprint strip seems funny to me in the modern context for the first time.
dreadedcandiru2,
You can see some elements of Mike’s expectation of winning in odd ways. For instance, we don’t see Mike and Deanna ever looking for a new place after their old place burned down in the fire. We are told Mike got his book accepted by the first publisher to whom he sent a copy of his manuscript, but the important part was that he didn’t bother sending it to other publishers. Those are two signs of someone who is accustomed to winning all the time, and of course, a source of irritation to the authors who read For Better or For Worse.
I also remember the strip wherein Deanna was gushing about the possibilities she ccould see if they were to buy the Tiny Train House. She mused thet he'd love it if he gave it a chance while he thought bubbled that he'd hate it. He won't even let his own wife have one in the win column.
Never thought of the John-Rod cheating connection. My reaction was more like, "This kid turned out pretty well considering what a brat he was as a kid!"
Anon NYC
Based on so many of the older strips (such as the ones where John has to get Mike a summer job, all the complaining Michael did about any work, etc.) I always just think of Mike as lazy, period. Competing takes work; I just don't think he wants to do anything that takes effort.
Working at Portrait became awful when he realized it was a regular job with schedules and expected work output. Being the "independent author" and freelancer who is supported by a wife with a good income allows him time to do what he wants to, when he wants.
DJ
Anon NYC,
I must admit I never thought of the John-Rod cheating connection either. It is certainly more subtle than the Sunday strip where Elly dreams about him cheating. However, if it weren't for that Sunday strip and Lynn Johnston in the Chicago Tribune spelling it out for the readers why that Sunday strip was running, the thought might never have come up. She has made it clear that she is not above putting those kinds of reprints in her hybrid stuff. Now, anything that she chooses to reprint is fair game for that kind of interpretation, and there is sufficient motivation from the author to justify it.
On the other hand, there is the potential for any little thing to be reinterpreted, and that might make it a little more fun. It becomes a "Find an insult against Rod/John in the reprint strips" exercise.
DJ,
You have a good point too. In fact, the later strips where John and Elly marvel over Michael doing things like paying back money he borrowed, volunteering to rake leaves , and picking them up at an airport, make more sense in that context. These may seem like minor things to us, but to John and Elly who are accustomed to a lazy Mike, these reactions seem more like an appropriate reaction considering their history with Mike.
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