Chess

Calvin is interested, fascinated, captivated by chess currently. Not sure why, except that there was a large scale chess board by the pool at the hotel this past weekend (soccer tournament). He didn’t play with it, but there were some older kids playing with it and he did ask a couple questions. 

As soon as we got home Ellie set out to answer his questions and teach him the game with her chess set. Nick helped a little bit.

Monday, he asked his friends at school if anyone knew how to play. There were two people who did and so he asked if he could bring our chess board to play with them. Monday night, before he started another game, it seemed like a good idea. Fast forward 10 minutes to when he was upset that his pawn couldn’t take one of Ellie’s pieces...and then he lost, and there was kicking of chess pieces and a tantrum. So I told him he couldn’t take the board to school. 

This morning he asked if he could. I reminded him of his poor behavior last night and that there were consequences and he couldn’t take the game to school today. Well, there was more tears and an angry Calvin. Eventually he recovered and seemed himself.

But as soon as we got to school, he started crying. He walked into the classroom, straight to his friends who he knew how to play chess, and through tears told them that because he kicked the pieces last night he couldn’t bring the game today. He genuinely was upset and sorry about it being able to bring the game because of his actions. He apologized to them and I think he felt that he had let them down. 

Then he saw the trains and started to play with them.