Do You Let Your Kids Cheat?
My in-laws came to town for the requisite weekend of spoiling, and left as always, some new habits with my daughter.
The artificial southern accent will go away soon enough (to my displaced southern husband’s chagrin). It’s the cheating I’m worried about.
Because, in true grandparenting style, my father-in-law let our daughter win at every game of Go Fish. But he didn’t just bumble his play. He let her reach over and pick cards out of his hand. He let her shift through the “fishing” pile. He let her run right over him.
I’ve been asking around, and most people tell me to just ignore it. She’s three; it will go away. It’s cute.
Yes, she’s three, and I don’t expect that one game of cards is going to ruin her for the rest of her life. But shouldn’t I be breaking this bad habit now? Maybe I’m reading a little too much into a pile of cards covered in different kinds of fish, but I can already see a life’s obsession with having her way and always getting to win. She’s already an only child, and we’re aware of that slippery “spoiled only child” slope that we have to navigate. Letting her get away with cheating at cards seems like it would put at least one foot on the sandy edge of that slope.
Is it really OK to encourage a three-year-old to cheat because “it’s cute?” What happens at five or six, when it stops being cute and starts becoming obnoxious?
Image: Kelly’s Kindergarten
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I hear you. I think it is OK to have separate rules (for something like Go Fish) for the grandparents. It can be explained that way – Grandpa thinks it’s fun/funny when he lets you do that. But mom and dad and your friends don’t play that way. Grandparents are the spoilers – the ice cream cone before dinner people… The new dolly when it’s not your birthday or Christmas people… Many grandparents distinguish themselves as the old softies from day one and most children “get it” by the time they hit Kindergarten (in my experience.) My 10 and 8 year olds will even joke that “Grandma will let us… we’ll wait till we see her” and wink at me. I think it’s fine.