Roots & Rhythms — Reflections on the rhythms that raise us.
THE ROOT: A reflection
You lost a game tonight.
Not by much, not in a way that mattered to anyone but you. But you lost. And I watched your face change.
You didn't throw the cards or flip the board. That's not your style. You just got quiet. That specific kind of quiet that means something big is moving through you and you haven't decided yet what to do with it. And then, so matter-of-factly: "I don't want to play anymore."
Not that's not fair. Not I hate this game. Just — done. The fun drained out the moment the outcome wasn't the one you wanted.
And I get it. You're five. Your world still runs on a logic where wanting something badly enough should maybe count for something. Where trying your best should guarantee a certain ending. Where the story closes with you winning, because aren't you the main character?
I didn't push you to keep playing. I watched you make your own choice about what you could handle, and I let that be enough. But later, after you were asleep, I sat with what I'd watched you bump into — one of the oldest, quietest truths there is.
You're going to lose. A lot. At so many things. For your whole life.
I know how that sounds. But I don't mean it as a warning. I mean it as something closer to a gift, if I can figure out how to give it to you gently enough.
Because here's what I've learned, and what I'm still learning: the game is worth playing even when you lose. Maybe especially when you lose. Not because losing feels good — it doesn't, and anyone who tells you otherwise is being dishonest. But because trying, engaging, showing up for something with an uncertain outcome — that's where the actual living is.
What I want you to know, even though you're not ready to really hold it yet, is that losing doesn't make you a loser. Coming in second doesn't make you less. The outcome of the game doesn't determine your worth. You are who you are whether you win or lose at Mouse Trap. The cards you drew in Uno say nothing about who you are at the table.
But you're five, and your sense of self is still so new, still so easily shaken by external things. You're not supposed to have this figured out yet. So when you lose, it genuinely feels like something in you is diminished. That's not drama. That's just where you are developmentally. And it's okay.
What I noticed tonight — what I want to hold onto — is that you didn't lash out. You didn't blame anyone. You just stepped away and protected yourself. And there's real wisdom in that too. Knowing when something hurts. Knowing when you need a break. Those are good instincts. I don't want to train them out of you.
But slowly, game by game, I also want to help you build the capacity to stay in the discomfort a little longer. To find the joy in the playing itself, separate from who wins. To discover that you can feel the sting of losing and still be okay. Still be you. Still be loved.
There's something quietly beautiful in watching you discover this for the first time. You're bumping up against one of life's hardest truths in the safest possible place — over a children's game at the kitchen table, with people who love you no matter what the cards say.
I'm trying not to fix it. Not to let you win on purpose, not to rush you past the feeling. Just to sit with you in it. To let the disappointment be real without letting it be the whole story.
Because I think these small losses are adding up to something. I think you're learning in your body what it feels like to want and not receive. To try and not succeed. And I think, slowly, you're discovering that you can survive it. That the world doesn't end. That we're still here.
Someday — not soon, but someday — I think you'll find something unexpected on the other side of all this losing. A kind of freedom. The pressure lifts when you know you won't always win. You can play just to play. Try just to try. Show up not because you're guaranteed anything, but because the showing up itself is the point.
But tonight you're five. So we'll just keep playing games.
And sometimes you'll win. And sometimes you won't. And I'll be here either way.
THE RHYTHM: Prompts to sit with
Think of a moment your child walked away from something hard. Did you respect that choice or try to redirect it? What would it have meant to just let it be?
Where in your own life do you still tie your worth to outcomes? Where does losing still feel like it says something about who you are?
What does it look like in your home to lose gracefully — not cheerfully, just gracefully? Have your kids seen that modeled?
Is there a difference between protecting your child from disappointment and sitting with them inside it? What does the second one actually require of you?
THE SOIL: A closing reminder
The game was never really about winning. It was about learning that you can stay at the table even when things don't go your way.
You're allowed to step away when something hurts. And you're allowed to come back.
Both of those things are true at the same time. Both of them are the lesson.
Listen to more reflections on The Montessori Dad
I'm J.D. — a stay-at-home dad writing about the slow, unglamorous, quietly beautiful work of raising children. Roots & Rhythms is where I bring the reflections that don't fit anywhere else. If it felt like something, you're in the right place.