No, not me. Her. She cheats! She decided her first card was a free pass to the Lollipop. Then after she ended up behind me (an appearance of the Candy Cane shortly before she reached the Castle!), she decided that she could go straight to the Candy Castle without, you know, going through the torture of picking the cards.
Where does this behavior come from?
It’s just plain ol’ bad parenting skillz.
Or kids being kids.
I still remember playing Chutes & Ladders with my niece when she was about 4 or 5. She was losing. If she spun a 3 she would be REALLY losing. She spun a 3, and immediately her hand went to the spinner to “fix” it… but just a split second later she pulled her hand away and looked at me guiltily.
Considering I still have an internal impulse to “fix” the spinner if I’m going to hit that long, long chute to the bottom, I think that’s pretty good. The only difference is that my hand doesn’t move!
I spent this past summer with my five-and-a-half year old cousins and we played many a game of Candyland.
Being twins, they were especially combative during gameplay and were both really into winning. I explained to them so many times about how it’s okay if you lose and it doesn’t make ME cry when I lose and that it has nothing to do with how great you are as a person.
They would still cheat, though. I eventually told them I wouldn’t play with them if they’d cheat, and I held to it. We ended up playing a lot of Go Fish! where it’s a lot harder to see who is the clear winner.