to ask what to do about a 9 yo who can't deal with losing?

[nomoremsniceperson]

Posting here for traffic as every time I've posted a thread somewhere else responses are very limited.

DS (9) is a lovely, loving, cheerful little boy. He's great with smaller children and babies, loves animals, very kind and accepting, he's well-liked and does well at school, quite stoical with any sort of pain or accidents, in many ways just socially/emotionally very well-adjusted. He also loves DD (11) fiercely and sometimes they play really well together. He can set boundaries and is polite, sweet, has a lot of empathy. In general just a really lovely little boy.

However, his sibling rivalry with DD is also pretty fierce (which I know is common) and there are some blazing rows which get out of hand, especially when we play games and his sister wins (but even if anyone else wins it can happen). His voice gets very high and almost panicky, as if his nervous system is completely overloaded. He becomes highly sensitive and completely, almost comically unreasonable (except there is no opportunity to find humour in the situation as it's always very stressful). He starts throwing things and screaming. Whether we tell him gently or forcefully that this behaviour is unacceptable, his behaviour only gets worse and I can see that he becomes incredibly distressed, to the point where even attempting to offer comfort triggers more agitation. We impose consequences like banning the game that caused issues, but it doesn't seem to have made any difference. I keep telling his sister he'll improve but he's been stuck at this level for years now.

The main thing that worries me is that when I try later to quietly talk to him about his behaviour, he deflects and says it's everyone else's fault. He cannot seem to reflect at all, he just flips out and goes straight back into fight or flight mode. He also has a victim mindset of being the one the rest of the family are all against. I worry this will impact on his ability to take accountability and on his sense of belonging to the family.

The nursery he was at thought he was possibly ND but an evaluation revealed it turned out he had a significantly higher than normal IQ. This isn't a brag, just to give context as higher IQ can cause children to have exaggerated responses to stress and social difficulties.

Will he grow out of this? Did anyone experience a similar situation which resolved? What helped? What made it worse? Am I expecting too much of a 9 year old boy? Is this just normal?

Any advice/help would be really appreciated :)

It’s very sad that your dd is placating her brother so he doesn’t kick off. If she wants to do something without him then she should be able to and her brother needs to put up with the feelings of jealousy or whatever and find something else to do.

My second child is very competitive and I had to shield my oldest from it. For example she didn’t do the same hobbies as her older brother because she’d ruin it by being competitive and this was a chance for ds to relax.

If another family member (you, your h or dd) achieved something that he wasn’t in the running for, is he able to congratulate the person? Eg if you got a job promotion then would he say well done?

He's got a big problem with his sibling.

He's not showing this behaviour anywhere else, he knows better, but he has massive tantrums when he's not beating her.

He can control his behaviour around friends, ect because he knows there would be consequences like being excluded from the group.

This behaviour is directed at one specific person, his sister. She's his target.

I'd suggest therapy for him ASAP. He really resents his sister. Your daughter shouldn't have to walk on eggshells around her brother or let him bully her into submission by losing to him.

You don’t make him apologise in case it makes him feel ashamed?? Wow.

What about your DD’s feelings, don’t they matter too?

Stop pandering to this…he’s 9 not 3. When he kicks off send him to his room. No small prizes for losing. No taking the game away from your DD or the rest of the family. Tell him to knock it off and apologize. To be honest he should feel some shame and remorse for acting like this (and no not in an extreme fashion before anyone comes back suggesting a child sized horsehair shirt), that’s how kids learn how to regulate.

He's not showing this behaviour anywhere else, he knows better, but he has massive tantrums when he's not beating her.

I’m guessing because he’s mummy’s little boy who can do no wrong and his friends and teachers tell him to straighten up or knock it off…just spitballing here

I agree. Along with OPs idea of giving him a few coins for his piggy bank if he loses! What on earth are you teaching him?

we don't make him apologise as I think it would make him feel very ashamed and would trigger the stress response anew.

When he causes trouble, he needs to apologize. He can control this behaviour, he's got one specific target. I think he should be ashamed of bullying his sister.

Don't give him rewards. Rewards are earned for doing certain things. He's bullying his sister. Rewarding him for that reinforces that.

His dad didn't cause this by yelling at him a few times when he was little.

I agree with those suggesting family therapy.

As I read your account of the sibling dynamic, it reminded me a lot of a family I know well.

Interestingly it's the opposite of what others are saying that is going on in that family.

In that family, the DD is 100% the golden child. Everything is about her and how brilliant and mature and wonderful she is. When they put up photos on social media of their family, 90% are of her. I messaged them for their DS's birthday and got back a photo of their DD. The favouritism is clear and very obvious.

Their DS feels undervalued and pushed out. It gets expressed by him being explosive and difficult..and that just is a bit of a spiral, they prefer her more and more because he is more difficult. He only gets any attention when he is angry.

I don't know whether it's the same thing going on for your family. You will know that. I tell you this to see if it resonates at all.

@nomoremsniceperson what would happen if the four of you played a game in a cafe or public space, or with guests there?

Family therapy sounds like a good idea. This will be affecting your daughter negatively too, siblings who have tantrums at that age can be very difficult to live with. Maybe play therapy for him too. I wonder if this would help you all.

Mine is a lot better than he used to be, but does get especially frustrated in situations where he has played objectively well (and sometimes better than others), but has lost through bad luck. He is happy to lose to someone he considers is playing well and trying hard and won't play if he thinks you are trying to let him win.

My nephew did this. He would chuck the game across the room. He did eventually grow out of it and is charming now.

The reason why people have picked up on it being the opposite is from what the Op has said.

She bans the game if he kicks off - so his sister misses out as much

Her dd had to ask him to join pancake making because otherwise he'll kick off - so his sister can't do things alone with Op without asking him because of the way he'll respond

They don't make him apologise as she thinks it would make him feel very ashamed - but don't seem to think about how the dd feels at being the victim

She's thought about giving some sort of small prize to the loser - rewarding his behaviour

There's a whole paragraph about how wonderful he is, but his sister gets simply especially mature and capable for her age and I think he compares himself to her.
Which comes across as making him a victim, and getting very close to "it's her fault he behaves like this".

I think he needs a way to step back from the intensity of winning/losing and see that playing a game is about enjoying time together. Sore winners (which he probably would be if he won) and sore losers do nothing but spoil the whole point of playing as a family.

I would have a conversation at a calm time where you explain all that, and also explain that if he can't even learn to lose nicely ro his.own sister then he might become someone that nobody want to play with. How would be feel if he was playing that game with friends and one of them started behaving the way he had? Being able to play games without getting upset is a skill that is learned. He needs some practice, and that's ok, but the first step is understanding what the right and wrong way to react is.

I taught mine to all compliment each other ("well played" "you were so close there" "you played well, i think you'll win next time" etc so they can actually practice the words that help them to win or lose well and be a nice person to play a game against.

Lastly, cooperative games are great for building up the sense of enjoying a game as a family without that pressure. Maybe play a few cooperative games, focus on speaking well to each other, and then give him a chance to put that into action with a short competitive game. Don't go anywhere near monopoly or anything with a long time investment as that just raises the stakes to max!

This. He should be bloody ashamed, he's behaving appallingly. There is nothing wrong with shame if you've behaved badly. This is how you moderate behaviour through your life.

I would ban games if losing has this effect . I thought you were talking about my GS also 9 who reacts very badly when he loses. He throws things and calls himself an idiot then storms out . I usually tell him off because it's not my place to ban him from playing .

High IQ doesn't necessarily rule out neurodivergence - the combination is sometimes called 2E (twice exceptional) and it's also not unheard of for children to be assessed twice in their life with different results.

However if the problems are only focused on the sibling relationship then it seems like family therapy might be a good approach. I would possibly look for someone who is experienced with ND (even though a therapist can't/shouldn't diagnose) because it might be if there are some traits, whether or not enough for a diagnosis, their experience might be useful there.

When he was a toddler he began to have these huge outbursts that really triggered DH, who is a wonderful father in most respects but tended to yell at him angrily in response, which I found unhelpful. I wonder if that had an impact on his ability to regulate his emotions, and on his self-esteem in these situations. DH has since made a big effort to react calmly but maybe the damage has been done. Or maybe that's unrelated and this is just his personality? I don't know.

Something from a toddler would not still be affecting him now unless we're talking major trauma. Changing the parenting response is usually effective in reversing any effects from less than perfect parenting.

FWIW this is an extremely common pattern in ADHD, ie the causation is the other way around, and I wonder if you're inadvertantly repeating the pattern a little bit day to do day in response to the sibling stuff. I have two DC with ADHD and from personal experience, their particular brand of dysregulation is extremely hard not to react to, and there is also research suggesting this is the case as well. It's taken me probably 15+ years to really, REALLY understand exactly how to stop getting drawn into this kind of thing because in the moment, any response aside from de-escalation and/or removing them from the situation tends to reinforce their sense that they were justified in their first response. If you're critical, firm, punitive, angry then they feel that you are unfair and against them. If you're apologetic, understanding, try to explain/reason then it reinforces to them that there was something to apologise for/justify. The only helpful thing is to completely stop all response and refuse to interact while they are shouting/making a scene, but to keep it completely neutral - this is really hard to do, but it's very worth doing because it's the only thing that actually helps.

I have come across this in a child l taught. He also had a very high IQ. In school he was always brilliant..seriously brilliant at everything and never really found anything difficult. He had a great vocabulary, interested in all topics..you get the picture. But he absolutely hated losing. His mom took him to a child psychologist and he said everyone was forgetting his age as he was so advanced and his emotions hadn't had a chance to catch up with his academic ability. So while he could get the rules and play quite sophisticated games he didn't have the emotional capacity to deal with losing them.
So he encouraged them to treat him for a while as a much younger child to give him more time to emotionally develop and to stop expecting so much from him. I hope all that makes sense.
He did grow out of it as the years progressed but it was difficult for a stage. His Dad was also an extremely bright man and often seemed to not recognise what actual age his boy was as they would have interesting chats and then he acted like an infant next minute.
Maybe leave the games for a while and do more craft etc so they can work alongside each other.

No, we still play games. We don't avoid stuff just for the sake of keeping the peace, and we hope that by exposing him to losing to his sister he'll learn. There are also a few games which are low stakes ie those with hundreds of rounds that go on for ages, like Uno or Cheat or Wizard, and he can cope a bit better with those. Also we play charades quite a bit, where we don't keep scores and just play in a set order. We do also play Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit and put the kids in a team with each other so it's kids vs adults (they've won fair and square every time!).

He's actually the one who really likes very competitive games where there's a clear winner, and always suggests playing them, but if his sister wins, it's meltdown time.

A PP asked if the problem is losing to a girl, but he has a lot of female friends and always has, and isn't competitive with them - in fact he's much less competitive with girls than he can be with boys. It's just because she's the person he always compares himself with.

I’m not sure about family therapy, my worry about that is that he may try to manipulate, monopolise, and guilt trip you all. I do think therapy for just him would be helpful though, he clearly has an issue that needs working on.
Meantime, yes, desensitisation to losing, you’ve had good suggestions for that by pps. But also before a game/activity you take him aside and quietly but firmly explain that if he kicks off he will have to go to his room whilst everyone else finishes the game. Then follow through, act quickly, but quietly and calmly, no long discussions or pandering.

Thank you for this, it's great advice. Neutral sounds like the way to go.

I am a bit ADD (minus the hyperactivity, but with hyperfocus) myself, and his dad is a bit of a dreamer too... we did think he might be diagnosed with ADHD, but when we had him evaluated, the staff at the medical centre ruled it out as he was very alert and attentive and just didn't have the criteria they were looking for. I read somewhere that high IQ can mimic symptoms of ADHD because there's so much happening in the brain that it gets "noisy" and the person ends up distracted. And I think that can contribute to him getting overwhelmed.

Following with interest as my nephew is virtually identical, aged 10. Those saying he's being indulged etc don't understand. Ive seen nephew inconsolable/seeming humiliated by losing or thinking he's not in the loop or keeping with (also very bright and capable) older sister. Poor kid, it doesn't come off as bratty at all.

My DSes have high IQ, are/were bad losers, and DS1 is AuDHD (strongly suspect DS2 ASD).

They do grow out of it on the whole, and actually it is quite a good impulse to have, because it appears (in them) to be linked to quite high intrinsic motivation to do well.

If nursery thought DS might be ND, is this something you might still investigate? It sounds like he’s getting good support, and that you’re aware of his needs.

I appreciate the insight 😊 Definitely not the case in our family though.
Neither is the golden child - DD is just a great kid too, in a completely different way - very savvy and smart, loads of cool ideas, great sense of humour, loving, sweet, creative. I couldn't be more thankful for both my kids, polar opposites as they are! I just wrote a lot more nice stuff about DS is because this post is about him, and I didn't want to give the impression that he's an irredeemable little brat, because that would be very untrue. It seems some people have assumed that's what he is anyway though.

Re. his relationship with his sister, although he's in competition with her, he does really adore her too. If he gets 2 sweets somewhere he'll always save one for DD. He misses her when she goes for a sleepover, he makes her little gifts. She also loves him a lot. They have recently been sleeping in the same room as my brother's visiting and staying in DD's room. We hear them chatting and giggling for ages after lights out and have to tell them to stop.

I feel like his competition with her is more about how he feels about himself than anger at her, if that makes sense? He just feels like he should be able to do everything she can do and is frustrated that he can't. And when he flips out, then he feels we are three and he is one, and he feels isolated. And then he compares himself with her even more, because she can regulate and he can't.