Teaching good sportsmanship.

My daughter plays soccer and gets very frustrated when she doesn't do well.  For the most part she does play well.  I have talked to her about not getting upset, but sometimes she does.  How can you teach your children not to be too competitive?

You sound like a great mom, hcross.  I think there is a healthy balance ideally to be struck between good sportsmanship and being too competitive.  That balance is sometimes tricky to find.  I teach my kids that when they win,  they have a responsibility to the opponent to be even more gracious than ever.  My goal is to foster a good winner by not allowing her to gloat or to brag or to think that she's better than someone just because she got a higher score in some game.

Having that sort of humility might help when your child loses or misses a shot on the soccer field.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that self-worth should never be tied to performance.

My answer is two fold. First, I play a lot of games like dominos and concentration with children.  In concentration, I change the rules for younger children.  If a 9 year old and a 4 year old are playing, the 4 year old is allowed to turn over 3 or 4 cards to find a match and the 9 year old turns over 2 each play. If they are matched in ability they both get to turn over 4 to start with and then as skill improves the number goes down to 2.  I have had many people say this is not fair, especially adults.  What is Fair about an adult beating a child in a game? When playing dominoes I am usually using this to teach math, therefore I will ask if a younger child has a domino in her hand to make points.

My other opinion is that we have children play sports at too young an age and some of the examples I have seen on the field from parents and players bears this out. This has been very unpopular but my children benefited from my opinion.