By: Kim Siffring, Director of Montview Community Preschool & Kindergarten
On my mom’s side of the family the game of choice is the card game ROOK. Growing up my grandfather and his brothers were cutthroat players. Playing as if there was much more than pride on the line. Fools were not suffered lightly and my cousins and myself didn’t play with my Grandfather and his brothers (the Great Uncles) until we had many years of playing under our belts.
To prepare for that day, we were gently taught the rules and basic strategy by our aunts and after a half decade of playing with the gentler and kinder family members, we would be accepted to partner with one of the Great Uncles, whose hands were as large as baseball mitts and had no trouble holding 14 cards while we all had to concentrate to sort and hold ours. Plus, they had YEARS of practice on all of us whipper snappers.
They were never outwardly joyful to be partnered with us young ones nor were they outwardly put out either. To be clear we were never invited to play, we always had to come to them and ask to be partners. When they said yes, the partnering was quiet, with the only words being exchange being bids or new strategies to think about. We were always in a supportive role when we were partners with the generation born in the early 1900’s.
The next step on the ROOK ladder was to partner up with the next younger generation, our uncles, and aunts. We were on more equal footing, at times bidding and leading the play and at other times being VERY supportive partners. The act of going set was looked at as a great learning opportunity, that at times included going over every play of that round to learn what we needed to do differently going forward. The impact losing had on our egos of depended on who your partner was.
Of course, there were the “TOP DOG” players, who were very hard to beat, my dad and uncle Carl being the Roger Federer’s of our families ROOK world. We all wanted to beat them so badly. So, year after year, Thanksgivings to Christmas’s we all tirelessly tried. Maybe if we partnered with different cousins, gave hints to get the cards we thought we needed (cheating, wink, wink), and played every chance we could, we would be able to beat them.
I took a break from playing ROOK when my husband was stationed in Michigan, and we had young children but no other family. One Christmas I received a call from my cousin Nikki. She was talking really fast, she almost couldn’t get the words out fast enough, “Stacy and I beat your dad and my dad in ROOK.” It is still a highlight of their ROOK playing careers. I was so happy for them.
Looking back on all those years of playing, it is easy to see our determination was being cultivated. We learned perseverance is ongoing, it isn’t a one and done experience. The struggle is real, and the struggle is good, because it is the struggle that teaches. We were not allowed to give up, we had to play until the game was officially over when one side reached 500 points. We had to continue playing even if one of our older partners made us want to cry. Successes were celebrated, and failures were looked at, most of the time, as learning opportunities. We could decide to take a break and then come back and try again as there was always another holiday around the corner. We heard frequently from our partners, “We’ll make it next time.” Or “ We aren’t that far in the hole.” Those encouraging words were so important in keeping us interested and moving forward.
Not once did anyone ever let us win and that is how it should be because it makes the all the wins so much sweeter. To this day, the win my cousins experienced is still talked about as a rite of passage, that had more to do with perseverance than just the passage of time.
Let your children struggle to learn something new, let them take a break and go back to it with new energy, model for them how to do something new, don’t be too quick to offer help, give pep talks, show them how it is ok to be afraid and still try, celebrate all of their successes no matter the size, remember growth takes time, and ego is involved on some level especially when wanting to learn something new, even for young children. Let them shine in their newly acquired skills that were hard fought for and celebrate yourself because it is hard to sit back, watch them fail, give them time, so they can learn and grow.
