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Losing gracefully is an important skill

As I've discussed so many times before, Rock Band is an incredibly fun game. But sometimes, The Boy wants to play - and his parents have bills to pay, dishes to wash, laundry to fold.

So lately, under supervision of course, I've been letting him play on Xbox Live. Xbox Live is an internet service that matches players against each other - for the game Rock Band, to do guitar battles.

Users can put on headsets and talk to one another; we've decided to disallow that part of our son's online play. But we let him get matched with other players and go head-to-head.

I think the target demographic for Xbox Live is probably teenage to early 20-year-old boys; it's definitely not seven-year-olds. But this kid is good - good enough to take on whoever comes and at least offer some stiff competition.

As I was watching him play, suddenly the screen went blank and said "Loading..." I looked at The Boy and said, "Huh? Did you press a button you weren't supposed to?"

He calmly said, "No, that's what happens when the other person gives up in the middle of a song. I win automatically."

I had seen that he was out-performing his opponent, but not by much. I then asked him if he ever gives up like that. "Well, sometimes, I guess," he said.

I said, "You know, you really shouldn't do that. First of all, it's not cool to your opponent. If he's going to beat you, he should get the credit for beating you fair and square - not win because you quit."

"And second, how do you know you're not going to make a comeback?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right, Mom," he said.

I continued to watch. In one of the matches, he was clearly going to lose - he was too far behind to catch up, unless the leader actually gave up. He asked me how he was doing.

"You're probably too far behind to win, but you can still give him a scare - keep going!" I said.

I wanted him to understand how to lose like a winner: with grace and humility. "It's totally okay to lose, you know," I said. "Sometimes, people are better than you. But how you handle losing says a lot about the kind of person you are."

He lost that match. Shrugging his shoulders, he said, "I hope I can play that guy again. Next time, I might beat him!"

That's the spirit! He continued to stick it out, match after match. Sometimes he won; more often than not, he didn't. But I didn't see him quit once. And when another opponent who wasn't even that far behind him suddenly quit mid-song, he turned to me and said, "Not cool. Not cool at all."