This weekend, I was playing with a new bean bag toss game with one of the kids. They had been on a winning streak all day. During one of our games, I started outscoring them.
They started getting very agitated that they were losing and made many attempts to change the rules of the game to go in their favor. There were many tears. Score sheets were destroyed. The lines from where we each tossed were moved.
This is one of the first times that this kiddo “lost” and I forgot how devastating it is to lose. The pain of losing is something that my body has gotten used to – the tightening of the chest, the immense feeling of being let down and not good enough. But for my little one, it was brand new and uncomfortable.
I did my best to be compassionate while maintaining a firm line on the rules. I reminded myself that the sensation of losing is new and uncomfortable. And at the end of the day, we made it through the new experience together.
