DS3 is REALLY into chess--I mean, really into it. He easily will play 2 hours a day if someone will play with him. We have sort of followed a policy of not playing our hardest against him but also not always letting him win by any means. Recently he's gotten better and has actually beat me a few times (note: I am really, really bad at chess and routinely leave pieces undefended). It may be that we made too big a deal out of this (I don't think I made a very big deal, but maybe), because whereas he used to be a cheerful loser, now he seems excessively invested and freaks out not only when he loses but sometimes if he loses important pieces. We always offer him the option to be allowed to win anyway, but I don't really want to go to a place where we "take it back" if we take a piece and he freaks out or where we avoid taking any powerful pieces. This is particularly true when he plays with DD7--I don't think it's very fair for her to have to play a game where she only can take pawns.
So far I have been putting the game away if he freaks (we're talking full-on weeping tantrum) and telling him we can play again later when he's calm. This doesn't seem to be having much effect.
Thoughts? I know he CAN be okay with losing, so I feel like it's not too advanced an expectation, and anyway he has the "let me win" option already. Am I being too hard on him? Should we go to playing a really weak game against him? I cannot overemphasize how excited he is about the game generally. It may be that this new tendency to freak out has nothing to do with him beating me and more to do with him just getting more intense about it. FTR, he is by far the less intense of my children, so these moments don't pop up much with him. I would say his most recent chess freak-out was one of the longest of his life.
Last edited by ultramarina; 12/18/11 08:30 AM.
