January 6, 2014

  • Parenting

    What do you do with a 9 year old who is a terrible sore loser?

    I’ve been having a struggle with my son in that area lately.   He likes to play games but he wants to win them all and he gets really rather ugly about it when he doesn’t.  I’ve talked to him until I’m blue in the face, tried various punishments, etc.  Today there was sort of a big blow up at the end of the day because we went to watch some kids from church while their parents went out.  They came home and just before we left, my son and their son got into some sort of disagreement related to a video game.  It ended with the other little boy calling me crying on the phone after we left, because he was sure that my son didn’t want to be his friend anymore.  That wasn’t the case at all, my son had just (unbeknownst to me) gotten on the losing end of a game and said something mean before quitting the game.  Anyway, it worked out with the two of them, but I sat my son down and had a LONG talk with him about this problem.   I told him that he will be the kid who no one invites to play soon, because no one wants to keep playing games with a mean person who can’t ever lose a game, or who gets mad when he does lose.  We talked about it for a long time and he did a lot of crying.  I think he actually listened for once.  I think it shocked him when his friend called him and was crying over something that meant so little to my son.  I don’t think he realized how much it impacts other people, even though I’ve told him so many times.

    So maybe this was a good lesson for him, and maybe it will be a sticking memory and point for him where he can realize that it does bother other people and not just him being angry when he acts like that.

    Has anyone else dealt with this ?  What did you do to help it?  I don’t want to have that bad mean child that no one likes, and I want to teach him how to be a good friend.  He is an only child, but when he was little, we did not let him win all the games.  It seems to be built in to his personality-all of his teachers have said at ALL the parent teacher conferences that he is so competitive and that he gets very upset with himself if he is not the best…right up from kindergarten until now.  I want him to feel good about being successful but I don’t want his whole attitude and mood and life to depend on winning all of the things.  It is definitely a challenge for me as a parent…how to help him with this struggle.  What is the best way?

Comments (2)

  • Oh my. Sorry you are going through that.
    When Elita was little we played
    Candyland and Chutes and Ladders and when she got mad about losing we told her that was not good sportsmanship. You had to be a good sport whether you won or lost.
    She never had a problem with sports and wasn’t into video games.
    I can see your concern. I hope that he can get this under control, as you do win and lose at things in life.
    Maybe you can look up some people on line who won and lost but still had a good attitude. Elita was an only child too but it depends on the personality.
    If he can see that being a good sport makes it pleasant for all involved maybe that will help him change his attitude.
    Here is a link. You could substitute competition in the classroom for sports, as to having a good attitude. http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/are-you-a-good-sport/

  • Just hang in there with him and over the years he should get it figured out.

    I love my profile picture on here, don’t you?

Post a Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Recent Comments

Categories