Independence & Courage

Helping your child handle losing a game

The board gets pushed off the table. Losing brings disappointment, and disappointment is a skill children build slowly.

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What your child may be practising

Naming disappointment as it arrives
Staying in the game after a setback
Noticing effort, not only the result
Congratulating someone else

How a Maple Kids story approaches it

1The story lets the hero actually lose, and survive it.
2A small repeatable phrase carries them through.
3The Parent Guide helps you praise effort specifically.
4The practice is one short game with a calm ending.

Story preview · Page 8

Rosa did not win. Her cheeks went hot. She breathed out and said, “Good game.” It still stung — and she was still okay.

Parent Guide preview

What this page is doing

Showing that disappointment can be felt fully and still pass.

Ask

“How did Rosa's body feel when she lost?”“What did she do next?”

Words to repeat

“You wanted to win. That's a big feeling. You played the whole game.”

Try it in real life

Play one short game today and name the feeling at the end, whoever wins.

Why stories can help with this

Stories & Emotion Regulation
Structured emotion-themed picture-book activities have been associated with improvements in preschool children's emotion recognition, expression and regulation strategies.
Wang L, Cui R, Wan N, Hu W. “Reshaping the Ability–Strategy Link in Emotion Regulation: The Role of a Structured Picture-Book Intervention for Preschoolers.” Behavioral Sciences. 2025;15(8):1137.
DOI: 10.3390/bs15081137
Stories, Empathy & Prosocial Behavior
A randomized study of four- to five-year-old children found that repeated shared reading of socially themed picture books was associated with improvements in empathy and prosocial behavior.
Chen H, Lyu D, Zhu L. “The effectiveness of social-themed picture book reading in promoting children's prosocial behavior.” Frontiers in Psychology. 2025.
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1569925

These studies examine shared reading and picture books in general. They did not test Maple Kids. Maple Kids is an educational parenting tool and not medical, psychological, diagnostic or therapeutic care.

Read the Research

Ready to build a story around handling losing?