Did you know that not only are games a wonderful way to naturally integrate various learning concepts, they are also a great platform for teaching life principles?

I was recently playing Skipbo  with ds6 – it’s great for teaching number recognition and order.  It’s simple enough for me to play even with distractions and has enough strategy involved to keep it interesting.  Ds was having a great time – until over the course of several turns I  repeatedly got what he considered the good cards while for those same turns he drew cards he couldn’t use.

As he expressed his frustration a couple of times, I thought about what a fantastic opportunity it was to sneak in some principles of healthy life management!  Being able to emotionally deal with frustrations and disappointments in a positive way makes a huge difference in the quality of your life, in the short and long term.

Today a neighbor was screaming at me for over a half hour (some of ds8’s friends came to pick him up today and their eyes were wide as they told me they heard her screaming from the sidewalk in front of the building where they were waiting for him, and wanted to know if it was me she was yelling at.  Yep, she was.)  Why?  What she says is that she is bothered by neighbors (not me!) who have destroyed her life and her relationships with everyone because they make too much noise.

The real reason is that she’s unhappy and she feels unheard in her life and she doesn’t have the ability to recognize or handle her own uncomfortable emotions so she displaces them.  Recognizing that she was expressing herself in an extreme way that was reflective of her inner pain was why I decided to listen to her – I felt she needed the emotional air of being heard.  Hostile and angry words boil out of her because she feels so powerless to do anything about the things that bother her, and feeling helpless and out of control is so painful that people will resist it by putting on the show of angry strength.

That’s what life is like when you can’t handle not having things the way you want it all the time.  There’s no emotional margin, no ability to see things through the eyes of someone else, and you insist on a selfish focus on yourself.  You become bitter, petty, vindictive, stressed out, anxious and miserable.

Isn’t it nice that we can help our kids avoid this fate just by using our game time together consciously? 🙂

Here are some things I commented on to ds during the thirty minutes we were playing – I think the parallel between the game of cards and game of life is pretty obvious:

– Sometimes you get the cards you want and everything goes the way you want it to go.  None of us complain about that!   And sometimes you get dealt a hand that looks impossible, and you think there’s  no way you can win with cards like these.  If you wait long enough, you’ll be able to use the cards you have and they’ll help you move forward.  Just because you can’t see how they’re going to help you when you first pick them doesn’t mean that you won’t need them or even appreciate them later on.  Being patient and trusting that you’ve been given what you need to play the best game you can – when it looks like you’re losing – will give you a winning perspective.

– You aren’t stuck with the cards you have forever.  You get to choose what cards to play, what cards to hold onto and what cards to throw down.  You’re not a victim and you’re not stuck.  Recognize and take responsibility for the choices you make.

– It doesn’t matter how good the cards the person you’re playing with gets.  Another person’s good fortune takes nothing away from us; it’s only our jealousy and negativity about their lucky cards that hurts us.  Appreciate that things are going well for them and rejoice in their success.  Your turn will come.

How can you share these ideas without lecturing or being heavy handed?

Demonstrate the attitudes you want your child to pick up.  You’re a living model to your child!  When ds got good cards and things didn’t look good for me, I told him how happy I was to see him doing so well.  When I got ‘bad’ cards I commented that it was going to work out well for me even though we couldn’t yet see how.  You get the idea.

Be aware of how you speak.  Our kids are picking up so much about how to approach life by listening to us.  Realize that every day you’re programming their minds. Yes, I know how intimidating that is!  Don’t feel overwhelmed or inadequate.  Who you are right now is enough and every day you get better!  Think about what messages you want to encourage, and try to consciously make that part of how you speak- changing your speech will change your thoughts, just as changing your thoughts will change your speech.

Whatever you do, DON’T lecture!  Lecturing is the worst possible way to teach your kids anything we want them to learn.  Make sharing your thoughts and value system something integrated and a natural part of your conversations.  Sometimes you may feel like you’re being obvious or coming on too strong and that’s okay.  It’s all part of the process.

Avivah