Heads and Tails - The Three-Year-Old Way

If you have a toddler/preschooler at home, you know they often make up their own rules for games. You can tell them what to do, but that means nothing to them. Nothing!

So we were in the backyard and I was telling my three-year-old, Claire, about the concept of flipping a coin. How she could choose heads or tails, then she would win or lose based on how the coin fell. She was fascinated by this. So I showed her how to flip the coin. Then I told her, "You try."

I expected this:

 

But instead, things took an alarming turn. She started to wind up like a pitcher getting ready to throw a fastball.

 

Then she hucked the coin across the backyard.  

I was like, “No! Don’t throw it! Flip it!” But she darted over to the coin, totally ignoring me. She picked it up and once again threw it with all of her might. “You’ll take someone’s eye out!” I shouted.

 

Claire has a surprisingly strong arm, and things were getting dangerous. The coin was zooming around ricocheting off of things. I could hear Kate, my six-year-old, shrieking.

 

 

 

Claire kept it up. She would run over to the coin and just huck it in whatever direction she was facing when she picked it up. She even lost it a few times when it flew into the plants.

 

 

But she kept producing more coins.

 

 

Where was this supply coming from!? It was too risky to investigate. I just had to hope it would run out soon.

 

After a while, Kate started yelling out things that they could flip for. “Let’s flip to see who gets to pick a TV show later!” she yelled. Claire would throw the coin, run to it and announce, “you win!” or “I win!” And Kate would call out something else.

 

 

 

Soon they were using the coin to dictate every move. “Let’s flip to see who opens the door to the house.” “Let’s flip to see who takes the first step inside the house!”

 

Just when I thought I’d have to ambush her, Claire lost her final coin. She shot it over the wall into the neighbor's yard.

 

 

 

Hopefully no one was seriously injured.

 

I decided that heads & tails wasn't the best game after all. But then I remembered another game that was fun.

 

"I'm going to teach you Rock, Paper, Scissors," I told her later. "I'll go get the scissors!!" she yelled and dashed out of the room.

 

Hmmm... not good. Not good. "Wait!" I called after her. "Let's just play Pat-a-Cake!"

 

No one can get injured with Pat-a-Cake.

 

... Right?