December 19, 2025 • 49 mins
In this episode, Jon explores why losing hits kids so hard—and why meltdowns over games are rarely about the game itself. Centered on the idea that “losing feels like a threat when a nervous system can’t predict what’s coming next,” he reframes sore losing as a regulation issue, not a character flaw. Parents will walk away with clarity, compassion, and practical ways to build frustration tolerance and resilience without shaming, fixing, or lowering expectations.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jon @WholeParent (00:02):
If you've ever had a child lose a game and
thought, why is this such a bigdeal to them?
You're in the right place.
Because when kids lose, it'srarely just about the game.
It's about fairness.
It's about control.
It's about belonging.
And a nervous system that justdoesn't know how to handle these
big emotions, often in publicmoments.
(00:26):
In this episode, we're breakingdown what's going on inside a
child's brain and body whenlosing turns into melting down,
quitting, or blaming, and whytrying to teach them a lesson in
those moments usually just makesthings worse.
We'll talk about why sore losingisn't a character flaw and how
responding in ways that buildregulation and resilience over
(00:46):
time without shaming andlowering expectations actually
makes kids into really goodlosers.
If that sounds good to you,let's get into it.
I have so many stories that Icould tell you about my kids
(01:08):
being bad at losing, but Iactually want to tell you a
story about me being bad atlosing.
Because the John who is wholeparent John, the John who is
pastor John, occasionally I willmention about being at my church
where I am a pastor, is not theJohn that always existed.
This John is a more mature, morewell-regulated, sometimes, most
(01:32):
of the time, version of me.
But when I was growing up, I wassuper, super competitive and I
hated losing.
And I'll give you an example ofone of these moments that really
sticks in my mind.
I was uh the coach, this maysound strange.
I was the coach of my church'schurch rec league softball,
(01:56):
co-ed 16-inch softball leagueback in the day, or team in the
church league back in the day.
And my wife used to play withme.
We were high school sweethearts,and so she was on the team too.
Uh, she did not originally go tomy church, but once we started
dating, I had to recruit her inbecause you had to have four
girls on a team, and she'spretty athletic.
(02:16):
She was really good, so it wasnice to have her on the team.
My cousin, also a female, waspretty good, and so having a
couple of good, really goodgirls who could play well was a
huge advantage.
Now, 16-inch softball, for thosewho might be listening and not
aware, uh, is a unique game inChicago.
We are like the only ones whoplay it, I think, basically in
(02:37):
the world, but it's softballwithout mitts, so there's no
gloves.
In our league, the girls couldwear gloves because they tended
to have smaller hands, but themen could not wear gloves.
So you there's no mitts, andyou're playing with this big
ball, which at the beginning isnot really soft at all.
It feels like a baseball in thefirst couple innings, but then
eventually it softens up andit's pretty heavy.
(02:59):
And so it's kind of this uniquegame, but it's kind of the
definition of not supercompetitive, what I'm what I'm
describing to you.
So a lot of the people likethere are games where we had, in
order to be able to field ateam, you had to have a minimum
of four girls.
Like I said, my mom, who's likethe most unathletic, like never
played softball, she would getout there if we needed to,
(03:21):
otherwise, we would forfeit agame.
And so this is not a highlycompetitive environment, but I
took it so seriously, like soseriously that it would like
make or break my whole day orweek if we lost a game or if I
didn't play well, which is kindof crazy because there were
absolutely no stakes, but I justit just was a big deal.
(03:42):
And I I I could be, you know, Iwas notorious for like arguing
with volunteer umpires over acall that they missed.
Of course they missed it,they're a volunteer, like they
didn't know what they weredoing.
But I used to just get soheated.
And I remember this one specificmoment when I knew that I had a
real problem.
And it was because we hadrecruited the uh chaplain
(04:05):
supervisor.
She was a woman who went to ourchurch, the chaplain supervisor
to come with her son, who waslike maybe in high school, to
come and play because we needed,again, probably an extra girl
for that day.
And I was like so mad aboutsomething.
And she said to her son,essentially, like, don't worry,
we we never have to come back.
(04:27):
And we were like winning thegame.
And I thought it was goingpretty well.
Like, we think we're probablywinning by a few runs.
Our team was pretty good.
Um, and she said to this, thislike 15-year-old kid, like,
don't worry, we never have to behere again.
I know it's like reallystressful and intense the way
that these you know that they'redoing this.
And it was, she was talkingabout me, and I like really
(04:48):
ruined it for somebody else.
And I'm not gonna say that thatmoment fixed me or anything like
that, but it was one of theexperiences that led me to
realize that I had a realproblem with things that felt
unfair, and I had a real problemwith losing.
And losing felt very threateningto me.
(05:11):
And I needed to work on that,and I have worked on that.
I don't play rec league, 16-inchsoftball, the league disbanded.
Um, maybe if I played today, Iwould be just as aggressive.
I highly doubt that I would be.
Four kids has very, very muchsoftened me.
The last year that we played, mywife was pregnant with my first.
And so uh, yeah, it's been it'sbeen a long time, but I remember
(05:34):
that.
I remember that vividly.
Uh, this mom saying to her son,it's okay.
The the people on your team havemade this unfun by being too
intense, by essentially beingsore losers before they even
lost the game.
And so I'm excited to do thisepisode because this is
something that I need help with.
And I don't want to pass that onto my own kids.
(05:56):
And so I usually give an examplefor my own life of my kids doing
stuff, but this is an example oflike this is a lesson that I
struggle to learn.
And you know who is the onearguing with the umps right
alongside me?
My dad.
He was also on the team, and healso was the one screaming at
everybody and being way toointense for the circumstances,
probably chasing people awaythat didn't say in front of me,
(06:17):
we're never coming back becauseof these Fogels who may take
everything too seriously.
And so I'm trying to do betterby my kids.
I don't want to raise three moreFogel boys who don't know how to
lose and don't know how to uhtake a chill pill and don't know
how to just make things fun.
And so uh we're talking about ittoday.
I have three questions frompeople, and I want to get into
(06:40):
the first one right now.
So the first question comes fromMaddie D M M-A-D-D-Y.
I like to spell this out.
Some people say Manny?
No, Maddie.
And she says, hey, John, so myfour-year-old is really bad at
losing, kind of like me, butinstead of four, I was 20.
Like full-on meltdown, boardgets flipped.
(07:01):
It's not fair, over and over,etc.
He'll quit halfway through andstorm off and then come back
crying because he never gets towin.
This is in quotes, which is nottrue.
I'm trying to teach him thatlosing is part of life, but
honestly, sometimes I want tojust be like, dude, it's
Candyland.
Is this just a phase?
Or am I raising that kid whocan't handle be not being the
(07:23):
best at things?
Because it feels embarrassing infront of other parents.
And also, I don't want him togrow up thinking the world owes
him wins.
Great question, Maddie.
Um, I have an almost identicalexperience playing Candyland
with my kids when they were whenmy oldest when he was five,
stopping in the middle.
This isn't fair.
(07:43):
I don't want to play anymore.
And I will start by saying it iskind of a phase.
It's a phase as it relates toCandyland, but it may not be a
phase as it relates to losing.
Because as I just expressed, ifwe don't do a good job with
framing games around what theyreally are, we can raise kids
(08:04):
who are kind of thesetestosterone heavy, uh
especially in my experience,especially boys, but I it could
it definitely could be girls aswell.
Uh, these testosterone heavy,like just really rough around
the edges, losers.
And the reason why a toddlerexperiences this is the actually
the exact same reason why I wasexperiencing this at 16, 17, 18,
(08:26):
19, 20 years old.
And it's because we we haveevolved over hundreds of
thousands of years to no longerlive in caves and small tribes
and villages out in you know thethe uninhabited wildlands where
we were constantly under threat.
(08:47):
Are we gonna have enough food?
Are we gonna be able to survivethe winter?
Are we going to come into a um aconflict with another tribe,
even another species, right?
There was a time in which Homosapiens were not the only
humanoid species.
Well, what about another specieslike a saber-toothed tiger?
I mean, you know, I'm being kindof facetious here, but you know,
big predators that are out therein the wild.
(09:08):
And we, our threat response wasevolved to keep us alive in an
environment where theoverwhelming majority of people
died before they were 30 yearsold.
And so understanding that ourthreat sensor as a four-year-old
is designed to keep us alivewhen the tiger comes running at
(09:32):
us, or when the bear comesrunning at us, or when we think
that we're out of food, or whenwe think that we're separated
from our parents, which is theonly way where we're gonna get
food and warmth and comfort.
That threat response is stillburied deeply in our brains and
our evolutionary biology.
The difference is those thingsare no longer true for by and
large, right?
(09:53):
Uh occasionally there arethreats that appear, but most
often our brain is actuallyparticipating in something
called amygdala hijack, which iswhen we feel like something is a
threat to our survival, eventhough it's not.
And in the case of afour-year-old, it's probably
just that this is a big emotion.
You know, there's there'sadrenaline that comes from
(10:15):
playing games, that comes fromluck-based games, right?
You turn it over, you don't knowwhat it's gonna be.
If it's that thing that youlike, you get a little hit of
dopamine.
Yeah, that's great.
You get a little hit ofserotonin, I'm winning.
That feels good, right?
A little hit of testosterone.
Like, like there's emotionallike chemicals in your brain
that are running around asthey're playing the game, which
is why kids like to play games.
(10:37):
They like to get all those goodchemicals coming in.
The problem is they also have,we also have loss aversion, and
we also have those kind ofcortisol chemicals, the stress
chemicals that come in when youflip over that card and it's not
what you're expecting.
I remember one time when I wasplaying Candyland with my son,
we were at the library.
This is a cheat code, by theway.
We didn't keep Candyland in thehouse because it got too crazy.
(10:59):
So we just went to the libraryto play Candyland.
And we went to the library toplay Candyland.
I set up the board and him and Iare playing, and he had was
doing really, really well.
Like he was almost close to theend.
Um, we had not even been playingfor that long, but he had drawn
a couple of the candy cardswhere you get to skip ahead for
those who are familiar with thegame Candyland.
(11:20):
But there's always a chance thateither you, I, the opponent,
could draw another candy cardthat put me even further ahead
of him, or that he could draw acandy card that sent him back.
Now, some parents have told mesince, you know what, we don't,
we never go backwards inCandyland.
That's just, but you know what?
That that's not, as far as Iknow, that's not the rule.
The rule of the game is thatyou're supposed to go onto the
(11:41):
square, that when you draw alollipop or a popsicle or
something, you're supposed to goto that square.
I'm not here to argue over thethe house rules of Candyland or
not.
But when he in in the course ofthis game, he drew the card and
he had to go way back to thebeginning and he like just
stormed off.
It's funny because he didn'teven lose the game, right?
Like he was not even muchfurther behind me, but he was
(12:04):
much further than when he whatthan where he was.
He still easily could have wonthe game with a couple of good
draws.
I think he went back to aboutthe same place that I was.
But because he was close to theend and he had this expectation
of winning, then all of a suddenthe cortisol kicks in and he's
like, I don't want to do this,this is unfair, this is, you
(12:24):
know, you're cheating.
Which, of course, all of thosethings are not kids want to call
things unfair when they don't goaccording to their expectations.
And that's really what all ofthis is about.
When we talk about losing withkids, what we're talking about
is there is an expectation forthem that they are going to win.
(12:45):
And that is because the way thatthey future cast is not
logically, they future castemotionally, they want to win,
and so their in theirunderdeveloped prefrontal cortex
essentially just fills in thegaps.
Okay, then you will win.
You want this, then you'll getit.
And it's really easy for thenthat not to happen because of
(13:06):
the course of the natural courseof a board game like Candyland.
And what will happen is thatthen that feels like a threat to
them because what they predictedwould happen, which is that they
were going to win, again, notlogically, but emotionally, they
predicted they were going towin, is no longer happening.
And their brain goes into likeamygdala hijack, where if you
(13:28):
can't predict what's going tohappen next, or if your
predictions are not coming true,that feels threatening to our
nervous system.
So then they they are kind ofget into a spiral where they
start to panic about the factthat they're not winning and
they just start saying, it's notfair, I never get to win.
And again, a lot of this is justage and developmental in phase.
What we really want to work onis not placing value in winning
(13:55):
as like the ultimate goal.
But that's not even what they'rethey're worried about it for,
right?
I'm not even really concernedabout that at four.
Really, at four, all you'retaking in is okay, this feels
threatening to them.
This is the fairness perception,is that they aren't getting like
my son never complained about itnot being fair when he was
winning, like by double, doublethe distance to the to the end.
(14:20):
He cares about it not being fairwhen all of a sudden something
doesn't go according to hisexpectations.
And so fairness is not thingsare equal, fairness are things
are going the way that I wantthem to go, or things are going
the way that I expected them togo, which often are the same
thing in the mind of anunderdeveloped, underdeveloped
mind of a child.
So what I would kind of holdhere, I would hold the boundary
(14:45):
around losing because kids doneed to learn how to lose, but I
would not try and teach a lessonin this moment and make this
like a character-buildingopportunity.
This is an example or anopportunity for frustration
tolerance and emotional distresstolerance, not an opportunity
for like empathy and teamworkand all of these skills that
(15:10):
require perspective taking,which your child just probably
is not at yet.
And that's where a lot ofparents fall short.
They're like, well, you know, ifyou don't like to, if you're not
willing to lose, then nobody'sgonna want to play with you.
Well, a child does not have theperspective taking ability.
Like, if they're able to say,good game, good job, let's play
(15:32):
next time, that is a trainedbehavior, but it doesn't come
from an under deep understandingof like next time we're gonna
play, I'm gonna, you know, wecan I can potentially win.
Like it literally is just atrained sentence that they that
they spit out because they feelthat they must.
Because again, their parentshave conditioned them into it.
So I would go in, I would holdthat boundary and I'd say, you
(15:54):
know, I I can't, I'm not gonnacheat.
I'm not gonna fix the game sothat you always win.
Um, losing feels really big toin your body right now.
Let's take some dragon breathsor let's play an emotional
regulation game, and then youtell me what felt unfair.
(16:14):
Right?
So just reconnect, just focus onthe connection because often
what kids are experiencing whenthey're losing is this
experience of disconnection fromtheir body and disconnection
from their opponent.
Like they don't I this isanother piece.
I just I know that there aretimes to play games with kids.
Like I said, I I played games,but I don't I don't play
(16:37):
Candyland with my my almostfour-year-old now.
Like I've learned over time thatlike there are just there is
just no reason to put myself andput him through that.
If we're gonna play a game,we're gonna play a game that's
some in some way cooperative.
Maybe we're uh I reframe therules.
I'll play Candyland, but I'llreframe the rules of Candyland
(16:58):
where like we're not racing eachother.
We're just both trying to makeit there.
And can we both make it therebefore the timer is up or
something?
And and and then we'recollaborating against the board.
I I think that those work a lotbetter for kids.
So don't fix the game.
Don't like cave and give in anddo just kind of do whatever they
(17:18):
feel like doing because theydon't understand it.
Instead, just reframe and say,okay, yeah, the game doesn't
feel fair fair right now.
I hear you.
Don't lecture them about how itactually is fair.
Just say, the game doesn't feelfair right now.
I hear you.
We can't change the rules of thegame.
Let's co-regulate in a number ofways.
(17:41):
Again, go to the bottom of theshow notes and get your copy of
my top five emotional regulationgames.
Use any of those emotionalregulation games.
By the way, the five emotionalregulation games are sh are
changing.
So by the time that you listento the episode, it will be
updated with a new fiveemotional regulation games that
you get.
Um, my top five, I've I'vematched the branding.
(18:03):
My wife uh beautifullyillustrated a new, a brand new
complete emotional regulationgame guide that's available for
purchase.
And it's based on theillustrations that she did for
our children's book that'scoming out at the end of April.
And so uh we updated thebranding and we updated the art,
and actually we updated thegames in our top five to more
(18:25):
clearly reflect the top fivethat we really use the most,
instead of just like, oh, hereare five.
These are really our top five.
So you can go down to thebottom, you can get those games
and play one of those games whenthe Candyland game doesn't go
well.
And so that's that's my that'skind of my script here.
You don't have to bail out, butthen also think I like I would
(18:47):
just be more preemptive and Iwould think a little bit more
about like, do I really want toplay winning and losing games
with my four-year-old, or do Iwant to wait until they're five
or six and they have an abilityto do some perspective taking
and logical thinking before I dothat?
I see so many people, like evenin my family, playing Candyland
over and over with likethree-year-olds and two and a
half year olds.
I'm just like, why are we doingthis to ourselves and others?
(19:09):
It just feels like you don'thave to do that.
They there will be plenty oftime for that later.
You don't have to like push yourkid into that early.
Okay, let me take a quick break,and then I will come back with a
comment from TikTok from Josh.
(21:36):
All right, this is on an oldvideo that I had.
It's a TikTok comment, and thevideo was about sore losers,
like how to play games,cooperative games.
And Josh said, My daughter issix, and she's fine playing
games if she wins, but if sheloses, she shuts down.
Like totally, won't talk, won'tkeep playing, won't look at
anyone.
It feels kind of weird as areaction.
(21:59):
Any thoughts?
Yes, I do have thoughts,actually, and I'm gonna go back
to what I talked about towardsthe beginning of the episode.
with my example of of beingoverly competitive in a s only
mildly competitive churchsoftball league.
(22:20):
The work that I've doneinternally through journal and I
did do therapy for a long time.
I don't I don't do regular talktherapy right now.
It's just a it's a season whereI haven't felt like my therapist
and I felt like that we didn'thave to meet monthly right now.
Things are kind of I have thetools and I'm using the tools.
(22:43):
But through those tools andthrough a lot of deep
introspection and and andself-reflection, I realized that
a lot of my feelings that I hadto win came from a feeling that
if I won people would like me.
If I was a winner if I wassuccessful if I was a champion
(23:06):
that somehow that would changehow people viewed me.
And when I read this commentthat my daughter won't talk,
won't keep playing, won't evenlook at anyone one of the first
things that pops out to me ishow losing to some people,
especially highly sensitivekids, and again um if you don't
(23:29):
know this 20% of peopleaccording to the work of
psychologist Elaine Aaron, Ithink she might have a PhD too
20% of people in across allcultures and times have been
more sensory have had a moresensitive sensory and emotional
(23:54):
internal world.
And these people she identifiesas highly sensitive persons.
Highly sensitive persons,according to her work and
research, really struggle to getthings wrong and really struggle
to lose because they feel thattheir achievement in performance
and ability to be seen as like aperson who doesn't make mistakes
(24:18):
is central to their identity.
And she goes into lots ofreasons why this is I'll have to
do a whole episode on thatanother time.
I've already done actually anepisode on highly sensitive kids
that you can go back to listento it's one of the earliest
episodes I don't know whichnumber it is but like in the
first 30 or episodes orsomething there is an episode on
highly sensitive kids.
It's one of my most listened toactually but when I hear about a
(24:40):
six year old who won't even lookat somebody after she loses it
does feel like a weird reactionbecause she's experiencing some
shame, some social anxiety overlosing and when I experienced
that my response was to doubledown to try harder to like
really focus on winning.
And it was because in some way Ireally felt like whether I won
(25:06):
or lost defined me as a person.
And um even when I recorded theintro I usually don't fix myself
in the intro I just kind of readit and if I make mistakes so so
be it.
But I had to re-record the introbecause I said something that
like slipped out that kind ofbetrayed this I said like being
a good loser and then I said ifyou can even be a good loser if
(25:29):
that's such a thing.
Of course it's a thing but I amstill processing that and losing
and like losing that part ofmyself because you know for some
people they just feel likethat's really centrally
important that they that theywin and that they're an achiever
in that way.
And so with a kid like this Ithink you take a two pronged
(25:53):
approach.
The first aspect of this isbefore you ever play the game
you set expectations thatsometimes new things are hard
and sometimes we win these theseare these are two affirmations
mantras that I use my kids andmyself one new things are hard
(26:13):
new things are always hard bytheir nature.
If they weren't hard theywouldn't be new nobody is
naturally gifted uh so naturallygifted at anything if they are
it's just because that thing isdrawing on something else that
they've done and so it doesn'tfeel new.
If it was truly felt new if itwas new uh in other words they
wouldn't be good at it it wouldbe hard and so new things are
(26:36):
hard always because we have tobuild neural path new neural
pathways and sometimes you cankind of intellectualize this for
kids and it helps them to sayyeah you know your brain has to
learn how to do this thing.
Did you know that your brain hasto change and it actually has to
grow to learn how to do thesethings and sometimes kids really
appreciate that really smartintellectually stimulated kids
they look at that my son who'snine he loves that right he used
(26:59):
to hate when I said new thingsare hard until I explained to
him what I meant by that.
Like there are literal pathwaysin your brain that have to be
built and it feels unconsciousto you to catch a baseball now
but it was so hard for you atfirst when you didn't have those
neural pathways in place.
And he's like oh yeah that'strue.
That's so true.
And so you can do that newthings are hard and you can also
(27:21):
say sometimes we win andsometimes we learn that's
another one that I love rightand you set these expectations
ahead of time.
These are not the mantras thatyou use after the fact when a
kid is experiencing this kind ofperformance based shame or this
social anxiety around losing orjust avoidant behavior after a
loss.
(27:42):
I don't think that that's thetime to do it.
These are the things that youcan do in the off periods
between games even after a winright yeah you did win.
Also you could have lost rightlike sometimes you win sometimes
you learn I think that those arethe times to do that.
The second pronged attack onthis one is after the loss
happens, I wouldn't talk aboutwinning and losing at all.
(28:04):
I'm not saying I would avoid itright I would not like just be
dismissive and be like oh let'sjust never talk about this
again.
I would just say your job is toreconnect to play another game
to read some books to draw withher to um play with some of her
favorite toys with her toreconnect in whatever way works
(28:26):
for her so that it becomes veryvery clear that her belonging
does not disappear just becauseshe loses and her belonging
would not be better.
She would not have a betterplace in your family if she was
more winning.
And I want to say here this isyou're identifying this in at
six and I think that this isreally important.
(28:47):
But what I when I see this morein society is with like 13, 14,
15, 16 year olds when they havesevere anxiety around winning at
school and not winning in termsthat we think about it, right?
Like the game a game of schoolbut like getting good grades is
(29:08):
a form of winning in school.
And when kids don't do that theyfeel like they don't have a
sense of belonging they feellike they have to perform for
their food and their place intheir family.
And many of us grew up infamilies where we had to perform
to belong we had to be a certainway otherwise frankly affection
(29:28):
was held back and um punishmentwas laid on and all of that
stuff like that that is a realreality.
And I don't think if you'relistening to this podcast if you
listen to my podcast on aregular basis that that's the
type of house that you want tolive in.
I don't think that you want tolive in a society in a family
where your kid thinks thatthey're that your love is
(29:48):
conditional for them.
And yet so much of our way ofparenting older kids feels
transactional and conditional.
And so I think it's a greatopportunity Josh at six years
old when your daughter loses ata like we were saying Candyland
or a soccer game or you knowsome competition that they're in
(30:13):
don't withhold and not put herin anything right like this is
different than a four-year-old afour year old who's struggling
to lose at a game where it's 1v1in a board game I think that
there's some place for us to gothey're not ready for this yet
let's let's wait a year.
But a six year old who's maybeabout to be seven she probably
is seven now because thiscomment's pretty old like I
(30:33):
don't think that you at thispoint go, yeah, I'm not going to
give you those good stressenvironments.
Those are good stressenvironments but the difference
between good stress and toxicstress often and tolerable
stress is a supportive homeenvironment, a supportive home
base.
And what you want is for hersense of belonging and love to
never be tied to winning.
(30:54):
And so I I would not talk aboutwinning and losing at all after
she loses I would go I'm sohappy that I get to hang out
with you now.
You know I'm glad that game'sover I'm so happy that I get to
hang out with you now.
Let's go do this fun thing thatwe love to do together.
I don't want to I just lost ohI'm sorry I I'm not even
thinking about the game I justlove spending time with you and
(31:17):
I just want to hang out with youlike that's what I would be I
that's what I would be focusedon I don't know if that's
helpful to you Josh but that's Ithink we're parenting with the
long and long term in mind we'restarting with the end in mind
and and I think that's where wethat's where I would want to
(31:38):
start thinking about how we wanther to be and how we want her to
perceive perceive her value notas being tied to being a winner
like I did but being tied tobeing loved which is what I try
and do now and what I'm tryingto do for my kids.
Okay take another break and thenwe'll get into Annie question
(32:04):
number three is the longestquestion today comes from Annie
it was an email often they arethe longest she says my seven
year old is in soccer now andevery single game they're losing
he just spirals he startsblaming his teammates he yells
at the ref.
Sometimes he cries or refuses toplay at all the coach pulled me
(32:26):
aside last week and was like hejust really wants to win but I
don't know I don't know what I'msupposed to do with that.
It doesn't seem like it's comingfrom the coach he's super laid
back about winning and losingit's just my son having the
issue.
We tried talks in the car takingbreaks from sports altogether
even bringing him with us forice cream if he keeps it
(32:47):
together which I know was badbut I was desperate is this
emotional immaturity is it toomuch pressure is this
testosterone he's seven I feellike I'm watching him become
someone who I don't want him tobe and I don't know when to step
in without making it worse.
Annie thank you for thisquestion this is very normal
seven year olds colliding withtheir own competition and
(33:10):
understanding and their loss ofcontrol and autonomy and coming
into themselves.
And so I don't want you to feellike this is the end of the
world.
I think that in many wayseverything that like you don't
have to worry about this if youdo what we've been saying so
far.
And I'm going to give you somepractical tips of how to work
(33:33):
with a kid who's specifically alittle bit older seven as
they're doing this.
But I want to begin by sayingdon't listen to the shark music
for those who have not heard metalk about shark music in the
past I try and talk about it alot it's one of my favorite
parenting concepts comes fromCircle of Security and shark
music is this idea that in themovie Jaws when the shark is
(33:54):
coming you always hear this dundun dunun and when you hear that
you know that the shark issomewhere.
And oftentimes the kind of thebeauty of the movie Jaws
Spielberg's one of Spielberg'searly movies one of the beauties
of the movie Jaws is that theydidn't really have the
technology to make the sharklook very good.
(34:14):
And so they use the music JohnWilliams music and like very
simple props like some barrelsthat they drag around in the
water to make you deeplyuncomfortable you know
underwater camera shots thatmake you feel like you're
looking at the perspective ofthe shark making people feel
vulnerable.
And they really leverage thismusic to great effect to make
(34:37):
you feel every time that themusic comes that something bad
is going to happen and thatdeath is on the horizon.
There's blood in the water theproblem is in parenting we often
do that.
We see something that is prettytypical I coached soccer for
seven year olds and I had a kidlike this on our team.
(34:59):
In fact my son kind of was likethis but not as much as some of
some of the other kids.
So there's one kid in particularwho I'm thinking about who has
really struggled with losing.
And we see that and we go oh mygosh this kid is going to be one
day you know if they keep onthis path one day they're gonna
be come on John screaming atpeople on a 16 inch softball
field.
No, or they're gonna be reallyaggressive like you know at
(35:21):
least I was just yelling atpeople in the context of the
game and I wasn't acting onaggression in other ways.
But I don't want you to hear theshark music because oftentimes
it becomes a self-fulfillingprophecy.
We start to treat our kids in acertain way because we're
worried that they are going tobecome a certain way and then
actually they hear that messageI'm becoming this way and then
(35:44):
they lean into it.
This is the same way reason I Ican't get into it.
I I have a lot of things aboutthis self-fulfilling prophecy
and parenting but whatever we'reworried about with our kids like
you are becoming this bad thinglike they like they hear that
even if we're not saying it theysee it in the way that we
interact with them and engagewith them and that becomes like
their narrative and you justdon't want to get to that point.
(36:07):
So it's normal hear that firstit's normal it's their nervous
system colliding with all ofthese things at seven their
sense of autonomy, their senseof agency they really have a
sense of agency but like all ofa sudden they're interacting
with other people some sevenyear olds like there's a there's
a broad spectrum of athleticability early in childhood and
(36:30):
then it starts to kind of therethere are different phases where
it kind of equals out and thenit kind of you know by high
school it kind of separates andthere's kids who are really
athletic and people who are lessathletic.
But at seven there it's acollision of of where some kids
were really really athletic atfour and five and they were like
faster than all of their friendsand they were like more
(36:51):
coordinated.
And then at seven their friendscatch up with them or get close
enough to them where it's notlike easy anymore.
Right.
Five year old soccer is justlike two kids are really good
and they're they're kind ofrunning circles around
everybody.
By seven eight like there is alevel of like everybody's
coordinated enough that thatthere can be some stops and it
(37:12):
can become frustrating for otherkids who who it was easy before
and now it's not and so I kindof all of this swirling together
it's just a difficult time to bein in doing this athletic
endeavors.
And what you have to think of itas I want to reframe it instead
of like my child really caresabout winning I just want to say
my your child really cares.
(37:33):
Right?
Ultimately he really cares andhe doesn't have the brain
developing development yet to toperspective take he probably has
some perspective taking but butnot enough to see how that
caring affects other people likeI didn't have that ability at 17
years old.
I was still developing that howdoes this affect other people
this is something that he'sgoing to develop for the next 20
(37:54):
years of his life at least 18years of his life he's gonna be
figuring out how his actionsimpact others and so you can
consciously draw his attentionto that without shaming him
because ultimately he cared toomuch and it costs some other
people some other things.
But just like in the previoustwo examples Josh's daughter and
(38:18):
Maddie's son your son's braintoo is being amygdala hijacked
it's going into fight or flightand he's trying to figure out
how to like make sense of thispanic mode when they're losing
he tries to give regain controlby taking over the game he tries
to like flee like this we can gothrough them right fight flight
(38:42):
or freeze right freeze is justlike I'm done playing I'm not
playing anymore.
Flight he's trying to getdistance from the responsibility
he's blaming other people orhe's blaming the rep.
Fight he just tries to play ashard as he can to try and win
the game in spite of this orlike really you know slide
tackles an opponent or somethingI don't think they let seven
(39:03):
year olds do that but you getthe point.
So you can see him going throughthis hard time and and that's
what's happening.
He's having a hard time he's notgiving you hard time he's having
a hard time so what number one Iwould try and stop processing I
would the same thing is true ofJosh.
I would stop making it aboutwinning and losing he's gonna
(39:25):
make it about winning and losingI would stop trying to process
this in the game hey do thiswell I would even stop trying to
process it immediately after thefact you said that if you did
well then we went to ice cream Iwould remove that I would go
okay we're not gonna processthis in the heat of the moment I
would process this with theseven year old they have a
(39:46):
memory and process it the nextday or maybe you know if it the
game happened in the morning youcould process it at dinner and
you could say something to theeffect of you know yesterday was
hard it wasn't hard because youlost it was hard because losing
made you feel out of control andthat's something that we can
(40:09):
work on together can you tell memore about what that felt like
and that's that's like that'show I would process that I would
be looking back at this goingokay so like yesterday it felt
like you were really out ofcontrol during the game did you
feel out of control no I justthought that the ref was like
messing up at everything.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah so it feltout of your control because the
(40:29):
ref was doing that and and andI'm and I'm kind of modeling
this as though I'm leading Ithink actually asking the
questions generally likegenuinely and say tell me what's
going on like I want tounderstand what makes you so
frustrated about this so that Ican understand how to help you.
I think he might be able to giveyou some language that you can
(40:50):
then repurpose and use.
And then when do you use thatyou use it before the game not
after the game so as you go inyou know you're you're driving
on your way to the game this iswhere he's probably already
thinking okay we got to win thisgame we got to like I want to
score a goal like we got to beatthe other team shift it into not
(41:14):
have fun but hey I want to seelike I want to see you grow
today.
I want to see like how you'regrowing today and give him a job
that has nothing to do withwinning or losing like I want to
see if you can get like threereally good passes today.
Oh man like I want to see if youcan smile and wave to me three
times during the game.
(41:35):
I want to see if you can if youcan collect 20 high fives I uh I
recently heard a TED talk aboutthis the guy the I think it was
about Steve Nash who's a famousMBA point guard and they were
trying to figure out how why hewon the MVP.
(41:56):
He was an MVP twice and bothtimes it's kind of like a
suspicious MVP where like hedidn't have really the stats to
do it.
It's a sports metaphor I guessyou guys can listen to in
episode about winning andlosing.
But Somebody went through andand were able to record, they
looked back at these games andeverybody always says that he
was like the best teammate toplay with.
(42:18):
It's like, oh man, Steve was sogood.
And oftentimes we think of thatas because he was a great
teammate because he took care ofthe ball, he didn't turn the
ball over, he was a greatpasser.
But what they found was that hewas like the best at high fiving
people of anybody in the NBA.
He he collected more high fivesevery game than anyone else.
And it made people feeldifferent.
(42:39):
It made people feel differentaround him because he made this
intentional effort.
So tell that story to your kidand go, like, I want to see if
you can collect 20 high fivesduring the game today.
And give him goals that looklike growth, but they don't look
like a win and loss column.
Because those are the goals thathe can actually control.
(43:00):
And my guess is a big piece ofthis is about control.
That's heaven.
A big piece is control.
And so everything that I've saidup to this point, right?
If it's about shame, if it'sabout feeling like he has to win
to be accepted, listen toeverything that I just said to
Josh about his daughter andapply that.
That may be a thing.
But if it turns out that it'sreally about control here, at
(43:22):
its at its base, then I thinkthat you want to shift this from
like in into some sort ofprocess-minded,
progress-oriented things that hecan control.
And I think if you do that andit's not about outcome, which he
can't control, then you canstart to say, like, wow, you did
(43:44):
that.
You did like a really great job.
And I'll say, um, when I was avolleyball coach, this actually
did affect really positivelyoutcomes as well.
So I stopped caring about winsand losses in my tenure.
I I inherited this team that wasterrible.
They couldn't win anything, theywere just literally had not won
(44:07):
a game all season.
And I turned the team around andhad us winning within like two
weeks of me starting as theircoach.
And uh I take massive amounts ofpride in that.
Not because I was like theworld's greatest gift as far as
a volleyball mind, but because Itotally reframed it from like,
(44:27):
if we're not gonna win any gamesanyway, like let's just let's
play for different points.
Let's see how if we can go theentire game without doing this
bad thing, or let's go like, andthen just focusing on on the
progress, right?
These were like 14-year-oldgirls, like they were not going
to join the professional or likeget scholarships to college the
(44:50):
next year.
They were not gonna join somesort of professional overseas
volleyball league in the nextsix months.
They didn't matter, likevolleyball didn't matter.
What mattered was how theyexperienced the game and how
they were going to improve.
And I gave them those jobs, andit was amazing.
It did actually impactperformance in a really amazing
way, and they started winninggames, partially because uh I
(45:12):
didn't really care if we won orlost points if they did the
right thing, right?
Like if they did the right thingand the outcome didn't come,
that's fine.
I don't care.
Like I I care about theprogress, right?
Like you did the right thing,like you guys worked together in
this way, and that was great.
And if they didn't do it right,I didn't come down to them with
punishment, I just came down,oh, we gotta work on that next
(45:32):
time, right?
So if you're uh in the back ofyour mind going, okay, yeah, but
I do want him to like also he hewants to be good and I want him
to encourage him.
Yeah, and this will lead toresults too.
Steve Nash was the MVP becausehis team kept winning.
Even like even the like theother people who were better
basketball players than him wereon teams that didn't win, so
(45:53):
they didn't really care.
And they gave him the MVPinstead.
Again, those MVPs are kind ofsuspect.
One of them probably should havegone to LeBron, but anyway.
Uh, we've reached the end of ourtime for this evening.
It's kind of a longer episodebecause I love talking about
this.
I love talking about how tocreate good losers and uh kids
who love to play, but don't makeother everybody else hate to
(46:16):
play around them.
And so I hope that this has beena good episode for you.
Uh yeah, that's what I got foryou.
I'll shut up so that we can getto the outro.
Bye for now.
Thank you for your timelistening to the whole parent
(46:39):
podcast today.
I hope you got something out ofit.
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episode.
The first one is to jump over onwhatever podcast platform that
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(47:00):
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And so it's a really quick thingthat you can do if you have 15
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And if you have an additional 30seconds, I'd love to read a
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I read all the reviews that comethrough.
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(47:22):
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(47:44):
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(48:05):
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(48:26):
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(48:49):
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(49:11):
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Thank you so much for listeningto this episode, and I'll see
you next time.
If you've ever had a child lose a game and
thought, why is this such a bigdeal to them?
You're in the right place.
Because when kids lose, it'srarely just about the game.
It's about fairness.
It's about control.
It's about belonging.
And a nervous system that justdoesn't know how to handle these
big emotions, often in publicmoments.
(00:26):
In this episode, we're breakingdown what's going on inside a
child's brain and body whenlosing turns into melting down,
quitting, or blaming, and whytrying to teach them a lesson in
those moments usually just makesthings worse.
We'll talk about why sore losingisn't a character flaw and how
responding in ways that buildregulation and resilience over
(00:46):
time without shaming andlowering expectations actually
makes kids into really goodlosers.
If that sounds good to you,let's get into it.
I have so many stories that Icould tell you about my kids
(01:08):
being bad at losing, but Iactually want to tell you a
story about me being bad atlosing.
Because the John who is wholeparent John, the John who is
pastor John, occasionally I willmention about being at my church
where I am a pastor, is not theJohn that always existed.
This John is a more mature, morewell-regulated, sometimes, most
(01:32):
of the time, version of me.
But when I was growing up, I wassuper, super competitive and I
hated losing.
And I'll give you an example ofone of these moments that really
sticks in my mind.
I was uh the coach, this maysound strange.
I was the coach of my church'schurch rec league softball,
(01:56):
co-ed 16-inch softball leagueback in the day, or team in the
church league back in the day.
And my wife used to play withme.
We were high school sweethearts,and so she was on the team too.
Uh, she did not originally go tomy church, but once we started
dating, I had to recruit her inbecause you had to have four
girls on a team, and she'spretty athletic.
(02:16):
She was really good, so it wasnice to have her on the team.
My cousin, also a female, waspretty good, and so having a
couple of good, really goodgirls who could play well was a
huge advantage.
Now, 16-inch softball, for thosewho might be listening and not
aware, uh, is a unique game inChicago.
We are like the only ones whoplay it, I think, basically in
(02:37):
the world, but it's softballwithout mitts, so there's no
gloves.
In our league, the girls couldwear gloves because they tended
to have smaller hands, but themen could not wear gloves.
So you there's no mitts, andyou're playing with this big
ball, which at the beginning isnot really soft at all.
It feels like a baseball in thefirst couple innings, but then
eventually it softens up andit's pretty heavy.
(02:59):
And so it's kind of this uniquegame, but it's kind of the
definition of not supercompetitive, what I'm what I'm
describing to you.
So a lot of the people likethere are games where we had, in
order to be able to field ateam, you had to have a minimum
of four girls.
Like I said, my mom, who's likethe most unathletic, like never
played softball, she would getout there if we needed to,
(03:21):
otherwise, we would forfeit agame.
And so this is not a highlycompetitive environment, but I
took it so seriously, like soseriously that it would like
make or break my whole day orweek if we lost a game or if I
didn't play well, which is kindof crazy because there were
absolutely no stakes, but I justit just was a big deal.
(03:42):
And I I I could be, you know, Iwas notorious for like arguing
with volunteer umpires over acall that they missed.
Of course they missed it,they're a volunteer, like they
didn't know what they weredoing.
But I used to just get soheated.
And I remember this one specificmoment when I knew that I had a
real problem.
And it was because we hadrecruited the uh chaplain
(04:05):
supervisor.
She was a woman who went to ourchurch, the chaplain supervisor
to come with her son, who waslike maybe in high school, to
come and play because we needed,again, probably an extra girl
for that day.
And I was like so mad aboutsomething.
And she said to her son,essentially, like, don't worry,
we we never have to come back.
(04:27):
And we were like winning thegame.
And I thought it was goingpretty well.
Like, we think we're probablywinning by a few runs.
Our team was pretty good.
Um, and she said to this, thislike 15-year-old kid, like,
don't worry, we never have to behere again.
I know it's like reallystressful and intense the way
that these you know that they'redoing this.
And it was, she was talkingabout me, and I like really
(04:48):
ruined it for somebody else.
And I'm not gonna say that thatmoment fixed me or anything like
that, but it was one of theexperiences that led me to
realize that I had a realproblem with things that felt
unfair, and I had a real problemwith losing.
And losing felt very threateningto me.
(05:11):
And I needed to work on that,and I have worked on that.
I don't play rec league, 16-inchsoftball, the league disbanded.
Um, maybe if I played today, Iwould be just as aggressive.
I highly doubt that I would be.
Four kids has very, very muchsoftened me.
The last year that we played, mywife was pregnant with my first.
And so uh, yeah, it's been it'sbeen a long time, but I remember
(05:34):
that.
I remember that vividly.
Uh, this mom saying to her son,it's okay.
The the people on your team havemade this unfun by being too
intense, by essentially beingsore losers before they even
lost the game.
And so I'm excited to do thisepisode because this is
something that I need help with.
And I don't want to pass that onto my own kids.
(05:56):
And so I usually give an examplefor my own life of my kids doing
stuff, but this is an example oflike this is a lesson that I
struggle to learn.
And you know who is the onearguing with the umps right
alongside me?
My dad.
He was also on the team, and healso was the one screaming at
everybody and being way toointense for the circumstances,
probably chasing people awaythat didn't say in front of me,
(06:17):
we're never coming back becauseof these Fogels who may take
everything too seriously.
And so I'm trying to do betterby my kids.
I don't want to raise three moreFogel boys who don't know how to
lose and don't know how to uhtake a chill pill and don't know
how to just make things fun.
And so uh we're talking about ittoday.
I have three questions frompeople, and I want to get into
(06:40):
the first one right now.
So the first question comes fromMaddie D M M-A-D-D-Y.
I like to spell this out.
Some people say Manny?
No, Maddie.
And she says, hey, John, so myfour-year-old is really bad at
losing, kind of like me, butinstead of four, I was 20.
Like full-on meltdown, boardgets flipped.
(07:01):
It's not fair, over and over,etc.
He'll quit halfway through andstorm off and then come back
crying because he never gets towin.
This is in quotes, which is nottrue.
I'm trying to teach him thatlosing is part of life, but
honestly, sometimes I want tojust be like, dude, it's
Candyland.
Is this just a phase?
Or am I raising that kid whocan't handle be not being the
(07:23):
best at things?
Because it feels embarrassing infront of other parents.
And also, I don't want him togrow up thinking the world owes
him wins.
Great question, Maddie.
Um, I have an almost identicalexperience playing Candyland
with my kids when they were whenmy oldest when he was five,
stopping in the middle.
This isn't fair.
(07:43):
I don't want to play anymore.
And I will start by saying it iskind of a phase.
It's a phase as it relates toCandyland, but it may not be a
phase as it relates to losing.
Because as I just expressed, ifwe don't do a good job with
framing games around what theyreally are, we can raise kids
(08:04):
who are kind of thesetestosterone heavy, uh
especially in my experience,especially boys, but I it could
it definitely could be girls aswell.
Uh, these testosterone heavy,like just really rough around
the edges, losers.
And the reason why a toddlerexperiences this is the actually
the exact same reason why I wasexperiencing this at 16, 17, 18,
(08:26):
19, 20 years old.
And it's because we we haveevolved over hundreds of
thousands of years to no longerlive in caves and small tribes
and villages out in you know thethe uninhabited wildlands where
we were constantly under threat.
(08:47):
Are we gonna have enough food?
Are we gonna be able to survivethe winter?
Are we going to come into a um aconflict with another tribe,
even another species, right?
There was a time in which Homosapiens were not the only
humanoid species.
Well, what about another specieslike a saber-toothed tiger?
I mean, you know, I'm being kindof facetious here, but you know,
big predators that are out therein the wild.
(09:08):
And we, our threat response wasevolved to keep us alive in an
environment where theoverwhelming majority of people
died before they were 30 yearsold.
And so understanding that ourthreat sensor as a four-year-old
is designed to keep us alivewhen the tiger comes running at
(09:32):
us, or when the bear comesrunning at us, or when we think
that we're out of food, or whenwe think that we're separated
from our parents, which is theonly way where we're gonna get
food and warmth and comfort.
That threat response is stillburied deeply in our brains and
our evolutionary biology.
The difference is those thingsare no longer true for by and
large, right?
(09:53):
Uh occasionally there arethreats that appear, but most
often our brain is actuallyparticipating in something
called amygdala hijack, which iswhen we feel like something is a
threat to our survival, eventhough it's not.
And in the case of afour-year-old, it's probably
just that this is a big emotion.
You know, there's there'sadrenaline that comes from
(10:15):
playing games, that comes fromluck-based games, right?
You turn it over, you don't knowwhat it's gonna be.
If it's that thing that youlike, you get a little hit of
dopamine.
Yeah, that's great.
You get a little hit ofserotonin, I'm winning.
That feels good, right?
A little hit of testosterone.
Like, like there's emotionallike chemicals in your brain
that are running around asthey're playing the game, which
is why kids like to play games.
(10:37):
They like to get all those goodchemicals coming in.
The problem is they also have,we also have loss aversion, and
we also have those kind ofcortisol chemicals, the stress
chemicals that come in when youflip over that card and it's not
what you're expecting.
I remember one time when I wasplaying Candyland with my son,
we were at the library.
This is a cheat code, by theway.
We didn't keep Candyland in thehouse because it got too crazy.
(10:59):
So we just went to the libraryto play Candyland.
And we went to the library toplay Candyland.
I set up the board and him and Iare playing, and he had was
doing really, really well.
Like he was almost close to theend.
Um, we had not even been playingfor that long, but he had drawn
a couple of the candy cardswhere you get to skip ahead for
those who are familiar with thegame Candyland.
(11:20):
But there's always a chance thateither you, I, the opponent,
could draw another candy cardthat put me even further ahead
of him, or that he could draw acandy card that sent him back.
Now, some parents have told mesince, you know what, we don't,
we never go backwards inCandyland.
That's just, but you know what?
That that's not, as far as Iknow, that's not the rule.
The rule of the game is thatyou're supposed to go onto the
(11:41):
square, that when you draw alollipop or a popsicle or
something, you're supposed to goto that square.
I'm not here to argue over thethe house rules of Candyland or
not.
But when he in in the course ofthis game, he drew the card and
he had to go way back to thebeginning and he like just
stormed off.
It's funny because he didn'teven lose the game, right?
Like he was not even muchfurther behind me, but he was
(12:04):
much further than when he whatthan where he was.
He still easily could have wonthe game with a couple of good
draws.
I think he went back to aboutthe same place that I was.
But because he was close to theend and he had this expectation
of winning, then all of a suddenthe cortisol kicks in and he's
like, I don't want to do this,this is unfair, this is, you
(12:24):
know, you're cheating.
Which, of course, all of thosethings are not kids want to call
things unfair when they don't goaccording to their expectations.
And that's really what all ofthis is about.
When we talk about losing withkids, what we're talking about
is there is an expectation forthem that they are going to win.
(12:45):
And that is because the way thatthey future cast is not
logically, they future castemotionally, they want to win,
and so their in theirunderdeveloped prefrontal cortex
essentially just fills in thegaps.
Okay, then you will win.
You want this, then you'll getit.
And it's really easy for thenthat not to happen because of
(13:06):
the course of the natural courseof a board game like Candyland.
And what will happen is thatthen that feels like a threat to
them because what they predictedwould happen, which is that they
were going to win, again, notlogically, but emotionally, they
predicted they were going towin, is no longer happening.
And their brain goes into likeamygdala hijack, where if you
(13:28):
can't predict what's going tohappen next, or if your
predictions are not coming true,that feels threatening to our
nervous system.
So then they they are kind ofget into a spiral where they
start to panic about the factthat they're not winning and
they just start saying, it's notfair, I never get to win.
And again, a lot of this is justage and developmental in phase.
What we really want to work onis not placing value in winning
(13:55):
as like the ultimate goal.
But that's not even what they'rethey're worried about it for,
right?
I'm not even really concernedabout that at four.
Really, at four, all you'retaking in is okay, this feels
threatening to them.
This is the fairness perception,is that they aren't getting like
my son never complained about itnot being fair when he was
winning, like by double, doublethe distance to the to the end.
(14:20):
He cares about it not being fairwhen all of a sudden something
doesn't go according to hisexpectations.
And so fairness is not thingsare equal, fairness are things
are going the way that I wantthem to go, or things are going
the way that I expected them togo, which often are the same
thing in the mind of anunderdeveloped, underdeveloped
mind of a child.
So what I would kind of holdhere, I would hold the boundary
(14:45):
around losing because kids doneed to learn how to lose, but I
would not try and teach a lessonin this moment and make this
like a character-buildingopportunity.
This is an example or anopportunity for frustration
tolerance and emotional distresstolerance, not an opportunity
for like empathy and teamworkand all of these skills that
(15:10):
require perspective taking,which your child just probably
is not at yet.
And that's where a lot ofparents fall short.
They're like, well, you know, ifyou don't like to, if you're not
willing to lose, then nobody'sgonna want to play with you.
Well, a child does not have theperspective taking ability.
Like, if they're able to say,good game, good job, let's play
(15:32):
next time, that is a trainedbehavior, but it doesn't come
from an under deep understandingof like next time we're gonna
play, I'm gonna, you know, wecan I can potentially win.
Like it literally is just atrained sentence that they that
they spit out because they feelthat they must.
Because again, their parentshave conditioned them into it.
So I would go in, I would holdthat boundary and I'd say, you
(15:54):
know, I I can't, I'm not gonnacheat.
I'm not gonna fix the game sothat you always win.
Um, losing feels really big toin your body right now.
Let's take some dragon breathsor let's play an emotional
regulation game, and then youtell me what felt unfair.
(16:14):
Right?
So just reconnect, just focus onthe connection because often
what kids are experiencing whenthey're losing is this
experience of disconnection fromtheir body and disconnection
from their opponent.
Like they don't I this isanother piece.
I just I know that there aretimes to play games with kids.
Like I said, I I played games,but I don't I don't play
(16:37):
Candyland with my my almostfour-year-old now.
Like I've learned over time thatlike there are just there is
just no reason to put myself andput him through that.
If we're gonna play a game,we're gonna play a game that's
some in some way cooperative.
Maybe we're uh I reframe therules.
I'll play Candyland, but I'llreframe the rules of Candyland
(16:58):
where like we're not racing eachother.
We're just both trying to makeit there.
And can we both make it therebefore the timer is up or
something?
And and and then we'recollaborating against the board.
I I think that those work a lotbetter for kids.
So don't fix the game.
Don't like cave and give in anddo just kind of do whatever they
(17:18):
feel like doing because theydon't understand it.
Instead, just reframe and say,okay, yeah, the game doesn't
feel fair fair right now.
I hear you.
Don't lecture them about how itactually is fair.
Just say, the game doesn't feelfair right now.
I hear you.
We can't change the rules of thegame.
Let's co-regulate in a number ofways.
(17:41):
Again, go to the bottom of theshow notes and get your copy of
my top five emotional regulationgames.
Use any of those emotionalregulation games.
By the way, the five emotionalregulation games are sh are
changing.
So by the time that you listento the episode, it will be
updated with a new fiveemotional regulation games that
you get.
Um, my top five, I've I'vematched the branding.
(18:03):
My wife uh beautifullyillustrated a new, a brand new
complete emotional regulationgame guide that's available for
purchase.
And it's based on theillustrations that she did for
our children's book that'scoming out at the end of April.
And so uh we updated thebranding and we updated the art,
and actually we updated thegames in our top five to more
(18:25):
clearly reflect the top fivethat we really use the most,
instead of just like, oh, hereare five.
These are really our top five.
So you can go down to thebottom, you can get those games
and play one of those games whenthe Candyland game doesn't go
well.
And so that's that's my that'skind of my script here.
You don't have to bail out, butthen also think I like I would
(18:47):
just be more preemptive and Iwould think a little bit more
about like, do I really want toplay winning and losing games
with my four-year-old, or do Iwant to wait until they're five
or six and they have an abilityto do some perspective taking
and logical thinking before I dothat?
I see so many people, like evenin my family, playing Candyland
over and over with likethree-year-olds and two and a
half year olds.
I'm just like, why are we doingthis to ourselves and others?
(19:09):
It just feels like you don'thave to do that.
They there will be plenty oftime for that later.
You don't have to like push yourkid into that early.
Okay, let me take a quick break,and then I will come back with a
comment from TikTok from Josh.
(21:36):
All right, this is on an oldvideo that I had.
It's a TikTok comment, and thevideo was about sore losers,
like how to play games,cooperative games.
And Josh said, My daughter issix, and she's fine playing
games if she wins, but if sheloses, she shuts down.
Like totally, won't talk, won'tkeep playing, won't look at
anyone.
It feels kind of weird as areaction.
(21:59):
Any thoughts?
Yes, I do have thoughts,actually, and I'm gonna go back
to what I talked about towardsthe beginning of the episode.
with my example of of beingoverly competitive in a s only
mildly competitive churchsoftball league.
(22:20):
The work that I've doneinternally through journal and I
did do therapy for a long time.
I don't I don't do regular talktherapy right now.
It's just a it's a season whereI haven't felt like my therapist
and I felt like that we didn'thave to meet monthly right now.
Things are kind of I have thetools and I'm using the tools.
(22:43):
But through those tools andthrough a lot of deep
introspection and and andself-reflection, I realized that
a lot of my feelings that I hadto win came from a feeling that
if I won people would like me.
If I was a winner if I wassuccessful if I was a champion
(23:06):
that somehow that would changehow people viewed me.
And when I read this commentthat my daughter won't talk,
won't keep playing, won't evenlook at anyone one of the first
things that pops out to me ishow losing to some people,
especially highly sensitivekids, and again um if you don't
(23:29):
know this 20% of peopleaccording to the work of
psychologist Elaine Aaron, Ithink she might have a PhD too
20% of people in across allcultures and times have been
more sensory have had a moresensitive sensory and emotional
(23:54):
internal world.
And these people she identifiesas highly sensitive persons.
Highly sensitive persons,according to her work and
research, really struggle to getthings wrong and really struggle
to lose because they feel thattheir achievement in performance
and ability to be seen as like aperson who doesn't make mistakes
(24:18):
is central to their identity.
And she goes into lots ofreasons why this is I'll have to
do a whole episode on thatanother time.
I've already done actually anepisode on highly sensitive kids
that you can go back to listento it's one of the earliest
episodes I don't know whichnumber it is but like in the
first 30 or episodes orsomething there is an episode on
highly sensitive kids.
It's one of my most listened toactually but when I hear about a
(24:40):
six year old who won't even lookat somebody after she loses it
does feel like a weird reactionbecause she's experiencing some
shame, some social anxiety overlosing and when I experienced
that my response was to doubledown to try harder to like
really focus on winning.
And it was because in some way Ireally felt like whether I won
(25:06):
or lost defined me as a person.
And um even when I recorded theintro I usually don't fix myself
in the intro I just kind of readit and if I make mistakes so so
be it.
But I had to re-record the introbecause I said something that
like slipped out that kind ofbetrayed this I said like being
a good loser and then I said ifyou can even be a good loser if
(25:29):
that's such a thing.
Of course it's a thing but I amstill processing that and losing
and like losing that part ofmyself because you know for some
people they just feel likethat's really centrally
important that they that theywin and that they're an achiever
in that way.
And so with a kid like this Ithink you take a two pronged
(25:53):
approach.
The first aspect of this isbefore you ever play the game
you set expectations thatsometimes new things are hard
and sometimes we win these theseare these are two affirmations
mantras that I use my kids andmyself one new things are hard
(26:13):
new things are always hard bytheir nature.
If they weren't hard theywouldn't be new nobody is
naturally gifted uh so naturallygifted at anything if they are
it's just because that thing isdrawing on something else that
they've done and so it doesn'tfeel new.
If it was truly felt new if itwas new uh in other words they
wouldn't be good at it it wouldbe hard and so new things are
(26:36):
hard always because we have tobuild neural path new neural
pathways and sometimes you cankind of intellectualize this for
kids and it helps them to sayyeah you know your brain has to
learn how to do this thing.
Did you know that your brain hasto change and it actually has to
grow to learn how to do thesethings and sometimes kids really
appreciate that really smartintellectually stimulated kids
they look at that my son who'snine he loves that right he used
(26:59):
to hate when I said new thingsare hard until I explained to
him what I meant by that.
Like there are literal pathwaysin your brain that have to be
built and it feels unconsciousto you to catch a baseball now
but it was so hard for you atfirst when you didn't have those
neural pathways in place.
And he's like oh yeah that'strue.
That's so true.
And so you can do that newthings are hard and you can also
(27:21):
say sometimes we win andsometimes we learn that's
another one that I love rightand you set these expectations
ahead of time.
These are not the mantras thatyou use after the fact when a
kid is experiencing this kind ofperformance based shame or this
social anxiety around losing orjust avoidant behavior after a
loss.
(27:42):
I don't think that that's thetime to do it.
These are the things that youcan do in the off periods
between games even after a winright yeah you did win.
Also you could have lost rightlike sometimes you win sometimes
you learn I think that those arethe times to do that.
The second pronged attack onthis one is after the loss
happens, I wouldn't talk aboutwinning and losing at all.
(28:04):
I'm not saying I would avoid itright I would not like just be
dismissive and be like oh let'sjust never talk about this
again.
I would just say your job is toreconnect to play another game
to read some books to draw withher to um play with some of her
favorite toys with her toreconnect in whatever way works
(28:26):
for her so that it becomes veryvery clear that her belonging
does not disappear just becauseshe loses and her belonging
would not be better.
She would not have a betterplace in your family if she was
more winning.
And I want to say here this isyou're identifying this in at
six and I think that this isreally important.
(28:47):
But what I when I see this morein society is with like 13, 14,
15, 16 year olds when they havesevere anxiety around winning at
school and not winning in termsthat we think about it, right?
Like the game a game of schoolbut like getting good grades is
(29:08):
a form of winning in school.
And when kids don't do that theyfeel like they don't have a
sense of belonging they feellike they have to perform for
their food and their place intheir family.
And many of us grew up infamilies where we had to perform
to belong we had to be a certainway otherwise frankly affection
(29:28):
was held back and um punishmentwas laid on and all of that
stuff like that that is a realreality.
And I don't think if you'relistening to this podcast if you
listen to my podcast on aregular basis that that's the
type of house that you want tolive in.
I don't think that you want tolive in a society in a family
where your kid thinks thatthey're that your love is
(29:48):
conditional for them.
And yet so much of our way ofparenting older kids feels
transactional and conditional.
And so I think it's a greatopportunity Josh at six years
old when your daughter loses ata like we were saying Candyland
or a soccer game or you knowsome competition that they're in
(30:13):
don't withhold and not put herin anything right like this is
different than a four-year-old afour year old who's struggling
to lose at a game where it's 1v1in a board game I think that
there's some place for us to gothey're not ready for this yet
let's let's wait a year.
But a six year old who's maybeabout to be seven she probably
is seven now because thiscomment's pretty old like I
(30:33):
don't think that you at thispoint go, yeah, I'm not going to
give you those good stressenvironments.
Those are good stressenvironments but the difference
between good stress and toxicstress often and tolerable
stress is a supportive homeenvironment, a supportive home
base.
And what you want is for hersense of belonging and love to
never be tied to winning.
(30:54):
And so I I would not talk aboutwinning and losing at all after
she loses I would go I'm sohappy that I get to hang out
with you now.
You know I'm glad that game'sover I'm so happy that I get to
hang out with you now.
Let's go do this fun thing thatwe love to do together.
I don't want to I just lost ohI'm sorry I I'm not even
thinking about the game I justlove spending time with you and
(31:17):
I just want to hang out with youlike that's what I would be I
that's what I would be focusedon I don't know if that's
helpful to you Josh but that's Ithink we're parenting with the
long and long term in mind we'restarting with the end in mind
and and I think that's where wethat's where I would want to
(31:38):
start thinking about how we wanther to be and how we want her to
perceive perceive her value notas being tied to being a winner
like I did but being tied tobeing loved which is what I try
and do now and what I'm tryingto do for my kids.
Okay take another break and thenwe'll get into Annie question
(32:04):
number three is the longestquestion today comes from Annie
it was an email often they arethe longest she says my seven
year old is in soccer now andevery single game they're losing
he just spirals he startsblaming his teammates he yells
at the ref.
Sometimes he cries or refuses toplay at all the coach pulled me
(32:26):
aside last week and was like hejust really wants to win but I
don't know I don't know what I'msupposed to do with that.
It doesn't seem like it's comingfrom the coach he's super laid
back about winning and losingit's just my son having the
issue.
We tried talks in the car takingbreaks from sports altogether
even bringing him with us forice cream if he keeps it
(32:47):
together which I know was badbut I was desperate is this
emotional immaturity is it toomuch pressure is this
testosterone he's seven I feellike I'm watching him become
someone who I don't want him tobe and I don't know when to step
in without making it worse.
Annie thank you for thisquestion this is very normal
seven year olds colliding withtheir own competition and
(33:10):
understanding and their loss ofcontrol and autonomy and coming
into themselves.
And so I don't want you to feellike this is the end of the
world.
I think that in many wayseverything that like you don't
have to worry about this if youdo what we've been saying so
far.
And I'm going to give you somepractical tips of how to work
(33:33):
with a kid who's specifically alittle bit older seven as
they're doing this.
But I want to begin by sayingdon't listen to the shark music
for those who have not heard metalk about shark music in the
past I try and talk about it alot it's one of my favorite
parenting concepts comes fromCircle of Security and shark
music is this idea that in themovie Jaws when the shark is
(33:54):
coming you always hear this dundun dunun and when you hear that
you know that the shark issomewhere.
And oftentimes the kind of thebeauty of the movie Jaws
Spielberg's one of Spielberg'searly movies one of the beauties
of the movie Jaws is that theydidn't really have the
technology to make the sharklook very good.
(34:14):
And so they use the music JohnWilliams music and like very
simple props like some barrelsthat they drag around in the
water to make you deeplyuncomfortable you know
underwater camera shots thatmake you feel like you're
looking at the perspective ofthe shark making people feel
vulnerable.
And they really leverage thismusic to great effect to make
(34:37):
you feel every time that themusic comes that something bad
is going to happen and thatdeath is on the horizon.
There's blood in the water theproblem is in parenting we often
do that.
We see something that is prettytypical I coached soccer for
seven year olds and I had a kidlike this on our team.
(34:59):
In fact my son kind of was likethis but not as much as some of
some of the other kids.
So there's one kid in particularwho I'm thinking about who has
really struggled with losing.
And we see that and we go oh mygosh this kid is going to be one
day you know if they keep onthis path one day they're gonna
be come on John screaming atpeople on a 16 inch softball
field.
No, or they're gonna be reallyaggressive like you know at
(35:21):
least I was just yelling atpeople in the context of the
game and I wasn't acting onaggression in other ways.
But I don't want you to hear theshark music because oftentimes
it becomes a self-fulfillingprophecy.
We start to treat our kids in acertain way because we're
worried that they are going tobecome a certain way and then
actually they hear that messageI'm becoming this way and then
(35:44):
they lean into it.
This is the same way reason I Ican't get into it.
I I have a lot of things aboutthis self-fulfilling prophecy
and parenting but whatever we'reworried about with our kids like
you are becoming this bad thinglike they like they hear that
even if we're not saying it theysee it in the way that we
interact with them and engagewith them and that becomes like
their narrative and you justdon't want to get to that point.
(36:07):
So it's normal hear that firstit's normal it's their nervous
system colliding with all ofthese things at seven their
sense of autonomy, their senseof agency they really have a
sense of agency but like all ofa sudden they're interacting
with other people some sevenyear olds like there's a there's
a broad spectrum of athleticability early in childhood and
(36:30):
then it starts to kind of therethere are different phases where
it kind of equals out and thenit kind of you know by high
school it kind of separates andthere's kids who are really
athletic and people who are lessathletic.
But at seven there it's acollision of of where some kids
were really really athletic atfour and five and they were like
faster than all of their friendsand they were like more
(36:51):
coordinated.
And then at seven their friendscatch up with them or get close
enough to them where it's notlike easy anymore.
Right.
Five year old soccer is justlike two kids are really good
and they're they're kind ofrunning circles around
everybody.
By seven eight like there is alevel of like everybody's
coordinated enough that thatthere can be some stops and it
(37:12):
can become frustrating for otherkids who who it was easy before
and now it's not and so I kindof all of this swirling together
it's just a difficult time to bein in doing this athletic
endeavors.
And what you have to think of itas I want to reframe it instead
of like my child really caresabout winning I just want to say
my your child really cares.
(37:33):
Right?
Ultimately he really cares andhe doesn't have the brain
developing development yet to toperspective take he probably has
some perspective taking but butnot enough to see how that
caring affects other people likeI didn't have that ability at 17
years old.
I was still developing that howdoes this affect other people
this is something that he'sgoing to develop for the next 20
(37:54):
years of his life at least 18years of his life he's gonna be
figuring out how his actionsimpact others and so you can
consciously draw his attentionto that without shaming him
because ultimately he cared toomuch and it costs some other
people some other things.
But just like in the previoustwo examples Josh's daughter and
(38:18):
Maddie's son your son's braintoo is being amygdala hijacked
it's going into fight or flightand he's trying to figure out
how to like make sense of thispanic mode when they're losing
he tries to give regain controlby taking over the game he tries
to like flee like this we can gothrough them right fight flight
(38:42):
or freeze right freeze is justlike I'm done playing I'm not
playing anymore.
Flight he's trying to getdistance from the responsibility
he's blaming other people orhe's blaming the rep.
Fight he just tries to play ashard as he can to try and win
the game in spite of this orlike really you know slide
tackles an opponent or somethingI don't think they let seven
(39:03):
year olds do that but you getthe point.
So you can see him going throughthis hard time and and that's
what's happening.
He's having a hard time he's notgiving you hard time he's having
a hard time so what number one Iwould try and stop processing I
would the same thing is true ofJosh.
I would stop making it aboutwinning and losing he's gonna
(39:25):
make it about winning and losingI would stop trying to process
this in the game hey do thiswell I would even stop trying to
process it immediately after thefact you said that if you did
well then we went to ice cream Iwould remove that I would go
okay we're not gonna processthis in the heat of the moment I
would process this with theseven year old they have a
(39:46):
memory and process it the nextday or maybe you know if it the
game happened in the morning youcould process it at dinner and
you could say something to theeffect of you know yesterday was
hard it wasn't hard because youlost it was hard because losing
made you feel out of control andthat's something that we can
(40:09):
work on together can you tell memore about what that felt like
and that's that's like that'show I would process that I would
be looking back at this goingokay so like yesterday it felt
like you were really out ofcontrol during the game did you
feel out of control no I justthought that the ref was like
messing up at everything.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah so it feltout of your control because the
(40:29):
ref was doing that and and andI'm and I'm kind of modeling
this as though I'm leading Ithink actually asking the
questions generally likegenuinely and say tell me what's
going on like I want tounderstand what makes you so
frustrated about this so that Ican understand how to help you.
I think he might be able to giveyou some language that you can
(40:50):
then repurpose and use.
And then when do you use thatyou use it before the game not
after the game so as you go inyou know you're you're driving
on your way to the game this iswhere he's probably already
thinking okay we got to win thisgame we got to like I want to
score a goal like we got to beatthe other team shift it into not
(41:14):
have fun but hey I want to seelike I want to see you grow
today.
I want to see like how you'regrowing today and give him a job
that has nothing to do withwinning or losing like I want to
see if you can get like threereally good passes today.
Oh man like I want to see if youcan smile and wave to me three
times during the game.
(41:35):
I want to see if you can if youcan collect 20 high fives I uh I
recently heard a TED talk aboutthis the guy the I think it was
about Steve Nash who's a famousMBA point guard and they were
trying to figure out how why hewon the MVP.
(41:56):
He was an MVP twice and bothtimes it's kind of like a
suspicious MVP where like hedidn't have really the stats to
do it.
It's a sports metaphor I guessyou guys can listen to in
episode about winning andlosing.
But Somebody went through andand were able to record, they
looked back at these games andeverybody always says that he
was like the best teammate toplay with.
(42:18):
It's like, oh man, Steve was sogood.
And oftentimes we think of thatas because he was a great
teammate because he took care ofthe ball, he didn't turn the
ball over, he was a greatpasser.
But what they found was that hewas like the best at high fiving
people of anybody in the NBA.
He he collected more high fivesevery game than anyone else.
And it made people feeldifferent.
(42:39):
It made people feel differentaround him because he made this
intentional effort.
So tell that story to your kidand go, like, I want to see if
you can collect 20 high fivesduring the game today.
And give him goals that looklike growth, but they don't look
like a win and loss column.
Because those are the goals thathe can actually control.
(43:00):
And my guess is a big piece ofthis is about control.
That's heaven.
A big piece is control.
And so everything that I've saidup to this point, right?
If it's about shame, if it'sabout feeling like he has to win
to be accepted, listen toeverything that I just said to
Josh about his daughter andapply that.
That may be a thing.
But if it turns out that it'sreally about control here, at
(43:22):
its at its base, then I thinkthat you want to shift this from
like in into some sort ofprocess-minded,
progress-oriented things that hecan control.
And I think if you do that andit's not about outcome, which he
can't control, then you canstart to say, like, wow, you did
(43:44):
that.
You did like a really great job.
And I'll say, um, when I was avolleyball coach, this actually
did affect really positivelyoutcomes as well.
So I stopped caring about winsand losses in my tenure.
I I inherited this team that wasterrible.
They couldn't win anything, theywere just literally had not won
(44:07):
a game all season.
And I turned the team around andhad us winning within like two
weeks of me starting as theircoach.
And uh I take massive amounts ofpride in that.
Not because I was like theworld's greatest gift as far as
a volleyball mind, but because Itotally reframed it from like,
(44:27):
if we're not gonna win any gamesanyway, like let's just let's
play for different points.
Let's see how if we can go theentire game without doing this
bad thing, or let's go like, andthen just focusing on on the
progress, right?
These were like 14-year-oldgirls, like they were not going
to join the professional or likeget scholarships to college the
(44:50):
next year.
They were not gonna join somesort of professional overseas
volleyball league in the nextsix months.
They didn't matter, likevolleyball didn't matter.
What mattered was how theyexperienced the game and how
they were going to improve.
And I gave them those jobs, andit was amazing.
It did actually impactperformance in a really amazing
way, and they started winninggames, partially because uh I
(45:12):
didn't really care if we won orlost points if they did the
right thing, right?
Like if they did the right thingand the outcome didn't come,
that's fine.
I don't care.
Like I I care about theprogress, right?
Like you did the right thing,like you guys worked together in
this way, and that was great.
And if they didn't do it right,I didn't come down to them with
punishment, I just came down,oh, we gotta work on that next
(45:32):
time, right?
So if you're uh in the back ofyour mind going, okay, yeah, but
I do want him to like also he hewants to be good and I want him
to encourage him.
Yeah, and this will lead toresults too.
Steve Nash was the MVP becausehis team kept winning.
Even like even the like theother people who were better
basketball players than him wereon teams that didn't win, so
(45:53):
they didn't really care.
And they gave him the MVPinstead.
Again, those MVPs are kind ofsuspect.
One of them probably should havegone to LeBron, but anyway.
Uh, we've reached the end of ourtime for this evening.
It's kind of a longer episodebecause I love talking about
this.
I love talking about how tocreate good losers and uh kids
who love to play, but don't makeother everybody else hate to
(46:16):
play around them.
And so I hope that this has beena good episode for you.
Uh yeah, that's what I got foryou.
I'll shut up so that we can getto the outro.
Bye for now.
Thank you for your timelistening to the whole parent
(46:39):
podcast today.
I hope you got something out ofit.
I have a couple quick favors toask of you as we end the
episode.
The first one is to jump over onwhatever podcast platform that
you are listening to right nowand rate this show five stars.
You'll notice there are a lot offive-star ratings on this show,
whether that's on Spotify orApple Music or Apple Podcasts.
(47:00):
We have a ton of five-starratings and it helps our podcast
get out to more people thanalmost any other parenting
podcast out there.
And so it's a really quick thingthat you can do if you have 15
or 20 seconds.
And if you have an additional 30seconds, I'd love to read a
review from you.
I read all the reviews that comethrough.
If some if you particularly likeone part of the podcast or you
(47:22):
like when I talk about somethingor whatever, imagine that you're
writing that review directly tome.
The second thing that you can dois go and send this episode to
somebody in your life who youthink could use it.
Think about all the parents inyour life.
Think about your friends, yourfamily members who could use a
little bit of help parenting.
It's vulnerable to share anepisode of a parenting podcast
(47:44):
with them.
I get it.
But imagine how much better yourlife is as a result of listening
to this podcast, of following meon social media, of getting the
emails that I send out.
You can share that with someoneelse too.
And so I encourage you, just goover, shoot them a quick text,
share this episode with them, orshare another episode that you
feel like is particularlyrelevant to them.
(48:05):
The last thing you can do is godown to the link show notes at
the bottom.
And like I said in the mid-roll,you can subscribe on Substack.
It's$5 a month or$50 a year.
Uh, I don't have that manypeople doing it, and yet the
people who are doing it havemade this possible.
And so if you like this episode,if you like all of the episodes,
(48:26):
if you want them to continue,the only way that I can keep
making them is through donorsupport, free will donations to
the podcast.
Please, please, please, please,as you're thinking about the end
of this year, as you're thinkingabout your charitable giving.
I know I'm not a 501c3.
You can't write it off on yourtaxes, but if you'd like to give
me a little gift to just saythank you for what you've done
(48:49):
this year, the best way to dothat is over on Substack.
Again,$5 a month,$50 a year.
It's not going to break thebank.
It's probably less than youspend on coffee every week.
Definitely less than you spendon coffee every week.
Maybe uh less than you spend onalmost anything, right?
Five bucks a month is very, verysmall, but it goes a long way
when it's multiplied by all ofthe different people who listen
(49:11):
to the podcast and sending thatover to me.
I get all of that money.
It's just my way of being ableto produce the podcast, spend
money on equipment, spend moneyon subscription fees, hosting
fees for the podcast, all ofthat stuff.
Email server fees, all that.
So if you're willing to do that,I would love it.
Thank you so much for listeningto this episode, and I'll see
you next time.
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