Teaching Boys How to Lose

I absolutely love board games and card games, so when I had kids, I thought – bingo (pun intended) – I’ve just grown myself a couple of little Games Night buddies.

And, you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve succeeded, and my four-year-old is completely obsessed with everything from Connect 4 to Chess, and Uno to Five Hundred.

Along the way, one lesson I have been weirdly intentional about is teaching my boys how to lose. I didn’t want to raise boys who flipped the Monopoly board when they lost a property. I don’t want my boys to be the ones who become so competitive and focused on winning that they forget that a game is meant to be fun.

And so, we’ve implemented an age-old chess rule – at the end of every game, whether you won or lost, you shake hands. You look the other person in the eye. And you say, “Good game.”

I tell him that what makes games fun is taking turns being the winner.

Sometimes you lose. That’s okay! You’ll probably win another time.

And if you don’t, you can still be happy for the person who did.

It may sound like a tiny parenting moment – and at four years old, it is – but I keep thinking about what learning to tolerate disappointment might mean later.

Because losing doesn’t stay on the chessboard.

One day it might be not making the team. Not getting the job. Watching someone else succeed when you desperately wanted to. Being dumped. Being rejected. Hearing “no”.

Losing hurts. Rejection hurts. (As a creative, I’ve experienced more than my fair share of it.) 

Disappointment can make us angry… but what do we do with that anger?

As a mum of boys, that question feels important to me.

There is research showing that reported domestic violence incidents increase around major sporting events, particularly if a team loses unexpectedly.

Of course, a football result doesn’t cause someone to abuse their partner. But men who are not equipped to handle loss, disappointment, rejection, and entitlement have been seen historically to turn their anger outwards onto their wives and children.

So how do we teach boys to lose well? To hear “no” without believing they have been wronged?

And in a world where boys are taught, still, that they should make the first move, pursue, propose, then there will be inevitable rejections ahead.

But here is something I want my boys to understand:

Somebody else’s “no” might hurt you. It might disappoint you. It might even break your heart.

But they still have the right to say it.

And maybe that’s why these tiny lessons matter.

Darcy doesn’t need a lecture about romantic rejection right now. He just needs to know that when Mum beats him at chess, he doesn’t get to flip the board.

So we shake hands.

We say, “Good game.”

We practise being disappointed and okay at the same time.

Because the bigger versions will come later.

For now, we’re starting with chess.