When we got "Mario Party 8," a video game for the Nintendo Wii, my 11-year-old son found himself dethroned as the de-facto winner of the family.

His 3-year-old sister, Sloane, took over as inevitable champion with such glee and hubris, even my son didn't mind yielding the position.

We're clearly repeating a past mistake, but if we excel at anything, it's at teaching kids to be poor sports.

Case in point: My daughter and her dad are playing a game, and the soundtrack is something like this: "Can I win? Did I win? Ha ha, I won. I did win! La la la la la."

When I read that quote back to check for accuracy, my daughter corrected me, "No, I won! Sloane did!"

To put this in context, I should point out that it's a one-player game, and both she and her father are waving Wiimotes around. Guess who's in control.

I've seen this before.

My son may never learn to lose gracefully. During our last game of Risk, he started clearing armies off the board when I was a few turns shy of world domination, ensuring that we won't be investing hours into that game again any time soon.

If he can't win, he gives up, or, if he doesn't, then he'll make us wish he had.

Consequently, we haven't let him play our newest acquisition: "Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree."

I actually think our son might be good at it, but it's pretty demoralizing at the outset and the learning curve is kind of steep. I know because I haven't managed to win any competitions yet.

I console myself with the constant reminder that I'd never ever, ever fall in love with someone I didn't think was smarter or more talented than me. My significant other tries to console me by asking how the game can possibly be correct when it says that his strength is memory, and he is incapable of remembering anything that I tell him.

My son doesn't like consolation. He likes accolades. He likes to win and can't possibly settle for anything less.

It's so bad that I'm impressed he even found a group of friends to play games with. I can only assume he's better at controlling his temper when he's not dealing with family.

I'm sure we helped create the problem by letting our son win and win and win, to the point that when he started losing it came as such a shock that it rocked his concept of reality and he's never gotten over it.

I can see the same pattern repeating itself in my daughter, but I'm powerless to stop it. It's so much better to see kids win than to be proud that I can beat people who are still in elementary school, or worse, preschool. Where's the fun in that?

When she's not being a reporter, Treena Shapiro is busy with her real job, raising a son and daughter. A blogger at www.honoluluadvertiser.com, she is always on the hunt for child-rearing tips, family-friendly activities and anecdotes. She'll share the best and the worst here and encourages you to do the same.

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.