Son always misses out

I have one like this. It’s not bad luck - it’s just that adults never “see” them properly, focusing on others.

I think this can be a huge element of it - a PP mention their DD school acting like academic success was a surpise ignoring all previous signs that was me in my secondary and DS in his.

I used to find it really odd people who knew us - would ask about DDs also quiet - and would seem to forget all about DS.

It's massively change since doing well at GCSE moving to new place college and volteeering - that's massively improved his confidence he seem to get seen now - it's odd but noticable.

I would be wary about messaging - your time will come - it doesn't always it is chance who you know and who sees you. Also be wary about messaging about growth - DH has constant messaging he'd get more height - he didn't - IL tried to do same with DS who also didn't grow tall.

I'd also try and get him into different sport - maybe solo ones rather than group or less competitive ones. My parents with good intention often made me stay in places I wasn't going to get on - including school sixth form.

I did do the make it up to them thing where we could - taking them out focusing on fun - it never feels equivalent but I think helps them have something so they don't feel as left out.

I'd be foaming about them cancelling him last minute

As for competitive sports sometimes you have to get them to take a step back. Iv 3 boys and all of them decided to step back. Eldest dc changed teams for football that was more for fun kicks abouts, younger two stopped competing and trained for fun in their sports.

They joined scouts and explorers where everything isn't a competition.

One has got involved on coaching you ger ones in his sport

Can't you reframe things - your younger child seems to be the lucky one rather than your older one being unlucky. The older one just sounds normal to me, with average amounts of illness and average achievements. Although if he is getting bronze/silver etc he sounds above average in some ways. Getting ill at important times sounds more psychosomatic than luck if he is mostly in good health the rest of the time. I read that you said he was ill a lot for a couple of years, but that isn't really down to luck and doesn't explain the other bouts of illness around important times.

My daughter was like this and always missed out at school. There was some favouritism too. She is now at Oxbridge excelling academically and at sport. However, her self-esteem was seriously damaged through school, especially having a friend for whom luck constantly seem to shine on and who had a tendency to gloat.

I am really not sure what you can do. I gave my daughter hugs and positive affirmations all the time at school but she still felt left behind in life. It was hard as she really did try and work as much as possible at everything. I hope her mindset will change one day.

Sorry not to be more helpful. But I understand you.

I don't entirely agree with the idea that you shouldn't say he's unlucky - because that's actually helped my DS, before we started saying it, he thought it was all his fault and got way more disappointed.

And I'm someone who I wouldn't normally say believes in luck - I'd always say that you make your own luck by putting yourself in the way of opportunities.

But this kid, if there's a way for him to miss out, he will - then if the next kid up is his little brother, then the little one will get double what he should. It's happened so often you have to notice, and you have to address it.

I think I would be saying to him, "what can we MAKE happen that will be good?" So I love the idea of keeping him off for the day and doing something fun. I try to write down the things I'm glad of or grateful for when everything feels a bit rubbish, so this is sort of an extension of that. You could be silly about it: the universe owes you now, so let's get you a good thing in the world.

He’s not been exceptionally unlucky in any other way other than your boy has been very ill for a year

there is nothing harder than picking up a child after they haven’t won something or been selected. I have the problem at the moment of a child who is always selected for a team but they are on a losing streak despite playing brilliantly. Just always a bit of bad luck and then they have lost a game 1-0. It gets very hard to keep up with the ‘next game it will turn around’. You know it will be resilient but boy do you want a bit of good fortune occasionally!

I was relatively unlucky at school. I was often stuck in the very good at a lot of things but not amazing so often missed out as being 2nd pick in a lot of things. It did affect my confidence and I’ve always had a feeling of being 2nd pick best even now so I absolutely understand where you are coming from.

that said I walked into university and met my future husband on my first day so I always say I was saving all my luck for that moment!

but with regards to the event today. That is absolutely out of order to email that late. You might not even have picked it up. I would be going ballistic at them this morning tbh!

I have a DD a bit like this- she's always the one who just misses out on being picked for the A's or cut when the squad size for tournaments is cut (eg if school decides not taking subs for a certain match so squad of 7 rather than 9). Like your DS she is quite short (tracking 5' 4'' adult height) but also late to puberty which hasn't helped so she's position limited which makes her less flexible as part of a squad. She's destined to be "the best of the B team" and this is somewhat replicated in academics- she's bright but not the one that ever wins a year end academic prize - and other school stuff - she's well thought of but not a prefect. There have been a lot of tears and disappointment tbh but I have helped her reframe it a little bit, helped by an older family friend (now 16) who has thoroughly embraced being the "B team hero" or as pp said "jack of all, master of none". I do point out to her that, in general, some of the girls who are picked in the A's above her are not the same ones as are kicking her ass in the maths exam are not the same people as the ones that are prefects- it's just that she's an all rounder and they have more defined strengths and weaknesses.

OP, is your DS born in the second half of the academic year? There is well known research / evidence - relative age effect - that professional footballers are more likely to be born at the beginning of the academic year. There are some outliers, such as Harry Kane, born at the end of July, but his genes (as well as his talent) probably help, he’s 6 ft. 2.

Have a look at the growth mindset theory, Carol Dweck. Please send him to school. When we deal with adversity we model how to cope to our children. I wouldn’t miss work were I disappointed and my DC wouldn’t have missed school.

I really feel for you and your son. Just to offer an idea. I’m not quite how to do this but perhaps to reframe things a little. Best things come to those who wait implies there is a best thing your son hasn’t got and needs to get. But the thing he worked towards and didn’t get is not the only thing in his life. Achievement and value is not just from getting the gold. Maybe try to help him focus on other things and see achievement and value in the day to day. I say this as someone who chased achievement etc and find now as an adult that I really don’t know how to just ‘be’. Take away the unlucky narrative because it suggests he is less than, or the universe has failed him. He’s done so many great things that need to be celebrated! I do think it’s about training the mind to spot the positives, some people find it easier than others. I’m still working on it! Good luck.

I think you might be looking this the wrong way. Most people are average by definition. We don't have to get to the top to be successful. I bet loads of people have dropped out of his sport or activity along the way and its only the good ones left at age 13.

My daughter does loads of activities and often "misses out" due to not being quite as good as the others but she doesn't feel unlucky. Eg she is involved in a sport where she hasn't progressed for years but still goes because she enjoys it.

Can you perhaps find something less competitive for him to join?

In relation to being picked for teams and plays etc I get what everyone is saying but there's another pp talking about how one of hers missed out on the window seat on the way home when it was turn, his brother getting the better pack of unseen football cards, never drawing a tombola prize ticket..that sort of thing. If it's constant and relentless and always, and it just is for some kids, then that can really hurt and there is no way you can affect it or change it. People are focusing on the sport etc but there's the other element too and just saying "well that's life" but when it's always them that it happens too, it's really disheartening.

I agree
but I suspect the op doesn’t want to hear this and simply has decided to leave the thread because we haven’t been giving the responses she wanted

Echo what everyone else is saying - you are creating a self fulfilling prophecy. Your son will be picking up on it as you clearly believe this he's unlucky narrative. You need to be far less passive. It's easy for you to not to do anything isn't it if you feel all these events are somehow attributed to fate. You should be on the phone tearing strips off the people who cancelled. It won't mean he can go but it will mean he has seen you standing up for him. I get the feeling that you are not a very forceful person OP and that your idea of standing up for your son is not cutting it. I think you need to really think about why you prefer the passive narrative of luck and the platitude of "good things come to those who wait".

The narrative you are feeding your DS about always being unlucky and how things never work out for him is harmful and needs to stop. He'll be on his way to being a glass half-full woe-is me man, if you are not careful

I'm so glad it's not just me who sees this. I mean, at one point his mum referred to him as the world's unluckiest person

I don't think it's helpful to think of it as bad luck, or people deliberately doing it, or not being good enough.
Nor to say "he'll have his time" because that isn't necessarily true.

Op, we do tend to remember the times we didn't get it. Try writing down every time he does get something.

My dbro used to always look on the bad side. He would say "it's always me". I had the reputation in my family of being lucky.
You know, I didn't get more opportunities than he did. If anything I got less because of that reputation my parents pushed him forward.
And if he didn't get something there were "not again" vibes all round, but nothing was said when he did, except he deserved it because of all the bad luck.
If I got something, then it was treated as got by luck even if it was because of something I had achieved. If I didn't get something I might have expected then it was ignored.

I think you’re misunderstanding other posters. No one is suggesting that your son doesn’t often come fourth or miss the cut-off for something, they’re saying it’s not a matter of ‘missing out’. He just is where he is, slightly less good than a number of others at his sport, a late developer in growth terms, has not got parts in plays, and in this case, had an event organiser mess up. These are all perfectly normal in the average childhood. You are the one stringing them into a ‘bad luck’ pattern where it doesn’t exist.

It’s like posters who think their house is haunted. Sure, there are creaks and draughts and mislaid things and flickering lights, but those are ordinary, unrelated, individual things, down to poor insulation, dodgy electrics etc. They’re not a string of related events. Neither is your son’s life a run of bad luck.