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zeldasmum

Sore Loser

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DS has always been a sore loser but he is getting worse.

 

He loves to play chess and has always played against me, recently I have to talk him into playing against me as he prefers to play against himself because "he is always the winner" if he plays against himself.

 

He has been playing for two years since he was four and I wouldn't mind but I hardly ever win anymore. :rolleyes:

 

Any hints or tips gladly recieved.

 

P.S He is like this with anything competitive.

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I'm sat here in anticipation that someone will come up with lots of brilliant ideas. My son is just the same. One thing he does is makes up games that he want others to play but the rules are always give him the edge.

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I think it just takes lots of practice - reiterating that it is OK to lose.

 

One teacher used to play a game, but did not say what the prize was til the end - so the winner could get a treat (go out early) or a "forfeit" (eg: stay behind and tidy the classroom)!

 

It also involves learning to be a "good winner" as well as a good loser (eg: thanking the loser for a good game).

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I wouldn't mind but I hardly ever win anymore. :rolleyes:

Who's the sore loser? :P

 

This was an issue I had big time when I was little; I'm better now, but still not perfect. :whistle:

 

Small things might help, but there's a need to be firm with them:

  • Simple rule - if you can't play nicely or lose graciously then you don't play at all - your decision
  • The winner has to pack away / set up the next game
  • Agree how many games you're going to play before you start and stick to it - that way he knows what to expect and can foresee the end
  • Play a game like 'Go for Broke' where the loser is the winner - that could shake things up a bit, though my poor mother still doesn't get it when she's claiming to have the most money / has stolen from the bank (no kidding - I never had a chance really to learn fair play! :rolleyes:)
  • If he's beating you at chess because he's better, play some other games so he has more experience of losing, and get him to play chess on the computer

There was an interesting programme on last night that was talking about how kids don't know how to get things wrong. We talk about learning from mistakes, but actually don't give children opportunities to make mistakes - when they make mistakes, it's seen as being wrong rather than a learning opportunity. So perhaps some talking/work with him on helping him understand that it's okay to be wrong, that he can learn from it (analyse where he made a mistake in chess for example) and that nothing bad is going to happen because he was wrong / made a mistake.

 

Also probably important to remember that all children, regardless of dx or no dx, will as times have problems to a greater or lesser extent with losing, so the same expectations should apply regardless of ASD - if he's allowed to get away with it, he will never have the opportunity to learn appropriate behaviour. :)

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I think it would help if you could introduce some other kinds of win/lose situations for him to learn from, and maybe couple that with some very casual sort of 'social story' scenario. As Kazzen says, you need to keep reiterating that losing is okay too, but it's also going to help to emphasise that always 'winning' eventually gets tedious ('hollow victory' is not the easiest concept to explain, but if you can find a way it's certainly one he'll be able to grasp trhough practical demonstration), and it isn't any fun for other players involved. Nobody wants to play against someone who always wins, and, even worse, nobody wants to play with someone who makes everyone's life a misery if they lose, because it takes all the fun out of it...

Probably the best approach to other win/lose situations is just to let then evolve from everyday events - 'I'll race you getting dressed', 'I bet I can beat you to that lampost'. Another way would be to play games with other family members and allow him to join in (this can be 'staged' - you and your partner playing snap or something like that), rather than playing the game specifically for his benefit.

Most importantly, I think you have to be pretty clear about what your expectation is of him, and avoid scenarios like 'letting him win' to keep the peace. I think also, if he has taken to playing 'against himself' you're going to have to have some sort of intervention plan. If he loves playing chess, then not allowing him to play chess when he demonstartes 'bad losing' is probably the most powerful sanction and reward at your disposal. He can't learn how to lose graciously without losing, and if he has strategies to ensure he doesn't lose at chess (i.e. by playing himself) you have to have strategies to overcome that, along with consequences - good and bad - that have meaning for him in relation to his behaviour.

In real terms being a 'good sport' is a social convention. Nobody really likes losing, and his aversion to losing is a perfectly natural and normal one. So what you're trying to teach is not 'how to like losing' but how to deal, socially, with not winning. To learn that he has to lose, and he has to be shown, unambiguously, what the appropriate and inappropriate responses to losing are.

Finally, probably the most powerful lesson you can give - if he does want to play games with you - is to simply say 'no, I don't want to play with a bad loser', because when push comes to shove that is what other people will say (with far greater social consequences) if you don't. :(

 

HTH

 

L&P

 

BD

 

OH: PS - it helps at this stage if you don't, when he loses, make an 'L' on your forehead with your thumb and forefinger and chant 'Loooser... Loooooser' repeatedly, or to laugh and shout 'EPIC FAIL' while pointing and doing a victory dance. :lol: These things do come with time, though, and actually add to the fun when both sides can handle it.

PPS: Last w/e we had a (NT) friend of my son's round for lunch who's still pretty ungraciuous about losing at thirteen... funny thing is, he never goes off on one at my house anymore, just at his house. I think it's because at my house if he goes off on one he's given a comic to read while we finish the game without him ;). I can happily report that he hasn't read any comics round my house for ages. :whistle:

Edited by baddad

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We're working our way through this and my daughter's learning to manage the feelings of stress it creates through practice by playing games at home and school, lots of modelling from me and teachers of how to lose graciously and social stories teaching her different ways of thinking and preparing herself for the possibility of losing. She now says over and over to herself - 'I might not win, I might not win' as a preparation for herself. If she loses I see the struggle go across her face as she deals with the emotions, talks to herself out loud to try to put it into perspective and then choses to play again. If she continues to lose over and over it all gets a bit too much and I try to give her an opt out before it gets too much but she will push herself until she knows she can't cope anymore. I've also explained that the end result is not the only important thing as we learn skills and strategies to make us better players each time someone else beats us. Explaining the difference between games of luck and games of skill is another sticky patch - Beth thinks it's not fair if we don't share the winning of games of luck and there is obviously something wrong with the forces that govern the universe who are out to get her :blink:. I'm really proud of the progress she's making though. My girl is nearly 10 now and I'd say it's in the last year or two that we've been able to actually enjoy playing games together :clap: .

 

At age 6 there are a lot of kids in my school who really can't cope with losing; it's something they all have to learn and some need more support than others, NT or otherwise. I'm sure your boy will make progress in this area as he grows and you keep giving him opportunities to take part in different games and activities and teach him strategies to use to calm himself or think of the activity in a different way. Good luck :).

 

Edit: Just read what Baddad said and I agree with it all. We used to have races to get things done too and I will calmly say, "I don't want to play with you anymore if you're going to get upset, it stops it being fun and other people will not want to play with you if you act like that every time". It's really tempting to avoid the games and therefore the confrontation but it doesn't help our kids if we do that :( .

Edited by Sammysnake

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My brother was like this as a child and he does not have ASD and has turned out quite normal :o

 

He is still extremely competitive, but he has stopped beating up the winner.

 

Some people have huge problems with not winning. One of the Saturday girls at work recently failed her driving test and was so distraught that her mum had to take her to the doctors for some sedatives! She cried for days when she did not get straight As in her AS level exams.

 

I think it's one of those things that just takes time. Once he sees that nothing awful happens when he loses, he may learn to cope better with it happening.

Edited by Tally

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I think there can be so many angles on this depending on the child themselves and on their strengths and weaknesses.

 

My son used to hate losing because it demonstrated to him that he was a 'loser' as he felt that other NT kids were always the winner and where always better than him, which TBH was probably the case at that time. And being "at the bottom of the class" for nearly everything is not a nice place to be.

 

He also used to try to control games, even down to having scripted dialogues that everyone had to keep to and he would become very upset if another child did not understand and did not comply.

 

Many of these things have improved as he has got a bit older and as his skills improved his need to control lessened.

 

If you want to play, but have little concept of spontaneous play and are maybe living in a rote world of copying things you have already seen on TV or in films, then your play is going to contain alot of control because for it to be 'correct' it has to be a repetition. And for that 'game' to have the predictable outcome you seek, it has to be a replica and for that to happen everyone involved has to be 'stage managed'.

 

For some children that might be their functioning level and trying to force spontanious, fluid play on them just won't work. But the trick is to notice when your child starts to show new skills emerging and to grab those opportunities and start to expand them. Sometimes you do just have to wait for them to grow up a bit more.

 

I have noticed that my son is quite delayed in his development, and thankfully skills are emerging, but they are around 3 years behind everyone else. So my 9 year old is probably functioning at the level of a 6 year old and has additional difficulties on top of these delays. And development also tends to be spiky, so some skills come through and others don't until even later.

 

Alot can and has to be done 'before' the actual game. It takes years of pointing out 'winners' and 'losers' and 'how did xxx behave when they lost' and 'what do you think xxx will do if he loses' and 'if you played with a friend and they always won, would you still want to keep playing with them', and 'if you win all the time do you think it is fun for me', and 'what do you think will happen if we do x, and not y'. etc etc.

 

I don't find it wrong to allow a child to win sometimes to improve their self esteem. All adults do it with all children - apart from my husband whose 'need to win' always takes over .... But all children also need to learn that sometimes they will lose. Some ASD children can hold their own with NT children and be on a similar playing field. Other children will always struggle and ultimately fail if they are not in a similar peer group or supported.

 

My son has also just recently started playing chess. And he can now beat me. For the first few games he had to win. And he would not let me tell him the rules of the game. In the beginning we were re-running the Chess scene from Harry Potter!

 

So instead of 'talking' through the rules I simply did it silently, showing how the pieces moved. Not only does my son struggle with losing, but also with being given advice. He feels it is a sign he is a loser that I need to teach him or tell him anything. He struggles with language. But silently he accepts it and understands it so much better and quicker than trying to explain verbally.

 

So after some weeks playing he asked me if I was letting him win. I said in the beginning I did let you win a couple of times. But now I am trying to win. And sometimes I will win and you have to learn not to get upset if I do win. And to begin with he did get upset if I won. Then the next time he won I role played how he behaves and what he says when he loses back to him.

 

Now he is alot better. But we have been working on this for over a year. And like everyone he has good days and bad days.

 

Sometimes I think they feel so bad about themselves and they desperately want to be the winner at something, that losing a game is just another admission that they are a failure. So lots and lots of pointing out what they are good at. And what other people are good and bad at.

 

And maybe playing against yourself is not just about the 'winning' but also about not having the social language or knowledge to know what to say or how to respond. You can model that and role play using either language, gestures and facial expressions etc.

 

But for now, I just have to work on my chess moves, because I am getting my XXX seriously kicked.

Edited by Sally44

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I'm 45 and still hate losing. I can't even let my son win at something by deliberately failing so when he does win it's a major 'in yer face dad' moment!:lol:

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