Conversations with a three-year-old about losing at video games
We played Mario Kart with my three-year-old nephew this weekend. When wew play Mario Kart my wife comes first, he comes tenth or eleventh, I come after him. I'm not great at Mario Kart but I will drive round in circles to make sure I come after him.
My wife had a disaster and came fifth. "Oh no!" she cried. "It all went horribly wrong."
The three-year-old put his hand on her knee. "Don't worry, Auntie Sophy, you can try again."
It was so stinking cute.
"Thank you," she said.
"You are so kind," I said.
"We can be on a team together," he offered. Which you can't, really, but it was a nice thought. An informal team, sharing in each other's success.
My wife went back to her winning form in the next race. "Yes! You did it!" he cheered and flopped on top of her in his version of a hug.
He's like this. Very encouraging. His brother and sister are too. Because that's how people talk to them. You can tell how kids are talked to by what they say.
The four-year-old nibling, different part of the family, is extraordinarily polite. He's also very helpful, obliging, and bossy. It's only fun though, bossy in a very upbeat, peppy way. "Right!" he'll say, "We'll set a timer for two minutes and you're going to pick up as many bricks as you can. Go!" only failing to realise adults can pull that sort of thing on kids but kids can't really do it to adults. I'll do it though, I'll put away bricks until he sings the alarm tone from his dad's phone about thirty seconds later and high fives me. Firstly because it's adorable, secondly because goodness knows knows kids don't have much agency in the world, thirdly because he asked so nicely.
So we played more Mario Kart with this stream of congratulation and encouragement until the five-year-old arrived. Then they played Mario Wonder together, beating up goombas to a constant refrain of "That's what you get for messing with my brother!"