Losing at the kitchen table

The activity

A game now and then, where everyone loses sometimes, you included, and it is all right to be upset about losing.

What it is for. A game is a safe place to lose. The stakes are low, it is over in minutes, and the people at the table love your child. By losing many times over, your child can find out that it changes nothing about how they are loved.

• The first step. Play whatever the house already has: cards, an old board game, a pencil-and-paper game. Keep it to one or two rounds.

Safety. Dice, counters and small pieces out of reach of children under three.

When to get help. If losing, or the fear of it, sets off distress that lasts long after the game, is getting worse over several weeks, or has spread to schoolwork, sport and friendships, talk to your child’s school and your GP. If one child is consistently targeted by a brother or sister, step in each time, and talk to your GP or that child’s school if it goes on. If it involves hurting, real fear or anything sexual, act that day, using the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page. If your child has hurt themselves, or talks about not wanting to be alive, stay calm, thank them if they have told you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day: help them ask the surgery for an urgent appointment, and if it is closed, use the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page. If your child tells you that someone is hurting them, stay calm, thank them for telling you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using those routes; if the person hurting your child lives in your home or your child’s other home, go straight to children’s social care or the police. If your child is badly hurt, or may have taken too much of a medicine, get medical help straight away, even if they seem well.

The other four steps, and your part in it, are in the library.

The sheet that goes with it comes with a subscription: Getting it wrong.

It goes with

• Perfectionism. For parents whose child can’t bear to get anything wrong.
• Siblings and the Fights That Aren’t Fair. For parents whose children keep finding new ways to fall out with each other.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full.

Free on this subject

• Perfectionism. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.
• Sibling conflict. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.