Saturday night is game night at our house.  I must admit that I am not always as consistent with this as I would like to be.  We often skip a week or two if I am feeling overwhelmed with other household chores (or lack of sleep), but I always feel so much better when I just ignore those things and we actually sit down together and just have fun. 

We always play at least three games.  We each pick a game (my two oldest sons and myself) and we play all three.  The reason I pick a game is so that we don't wind up playing the same two games every week.  You know how kids get when they hook on a favorite.  This is also why I am part of the movie night rotation as well.  Movie night is on Friday.  My middle son always picks one of the same two movies whenever it is his turn, so my having a turn to pick at least spaces it out more.  But back to games.....tonight we played Candyland, Sorry and Hi Ho Cherry-O.  

Game night can be a wonderfully pleasant experience, that is if my older son wins every game.  However, I insist on playing by the rules (he is famous for trying to pull the sneaky do-overs, though when I call him on it he always fesses up) and when he doesn't win, he is quite the sore loser, which makes for an unpleasant time for everyone.  This is probably my fault, since before his brother was old enough to play and it was just the two of us, I used to let him win.  But once my other son was old enough to play, I no longer let him win.  We played strictly by the rules, as we should.  So its no surprise that my middle son never gets upset if he doesn't win.  He is used to winning sometimes and losing sometimes. Tonight my middle son won Candyland and Sorry and I won Hi Ho Cherry-O.   This made for one unhappy 5 year old, though I must say he has gotten much better at controlling his emotions.  He used to get mad and then refuse to play any other games.  Tonight he was upset and made a temporary vow not to play anymore but then pretty much got over it rather quickly (I should say quickly compared to how he usually reacts). I did add a quick game of Go Fish afterwards because I knew he'd win that (he always does). I don't know if that is right or wrong, but I couldn't help wanting to cheer him up. 

Is there anyone else out there that has had to deal with this problem?  And if so, any advice?  Or even if you haven't had this problem in your family, perhaps you still have some advice for me. (But try not to be too harsh!)