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 :)

I have definitely noticed both on Mumsnet and RL that people can be much much harsher about boys. I guarantee that if you had posted about a sore loser DD and a mature DS, it would still somehow be the DS's fault..

Fwiw you don't sound at all like you favour him, just that you find this difficult!

Are there things he is better at than her? Perhaps doing more of those things might build his self esteem? Or perhaps all of you talking more openly about things you find hard, different things, might help him not see it as 3 Vs 1 in that way.

I once bit the piano in frustration when I couldn’t play a piece properly and kept making mistakes.

I remain hyper competitive to this day and I’m 44. But I’ve had to learn one can’t win parlour games every time!

I do worry a lot about the impact on DD. In the moment she gets (understandably) frustrated too and sometimes starts to really needle him, and I have to tell her to stop sometimes because she takes it too far. Then she feels she is being punished for reacting to him being such a nightmare. I try to explain that she is right to be angry and that his behaviour is completely unreasonable, but that we have to try to de-escalate a bit when he is so overwhelmed, which means knowing when to just call it a day and stop responding. But of course, she's still a kid too and so not quite able to not have the last word.

In the end I usually manage to make them both unhappy. Which is fun 😬

I agree with @Balloonhearts too, this kind of behaviour needs curing pronto, otherwise gets going to be insufferable as a teenager and adult.

Very similar here. DC1 (college now) improved as he got older. Still wants to win but can just about deal with it now if he loses. Things were particularly bad between the ages of 8 and 12.

One of my children was exactly like this. He grew out of it. As an adult he is still fiercely competitive but manages it appropriately. He played a lot of team sports at school and that seemed to help, not sure how or why.

Hope it brings the OP some comfort that you are never in the trenches alone! ❤️

You did explain it well :)

He is pretty good at maths, and at puzzles etc. He's absolutely terrible at talking about his feelings though. If I try to talk about feelings at all he often puts his hands over his ears and tells me to stop, even if I'm complimenting him!

Yes, it definitely brings a great deal of comfort to know other peoples' sore losers grew out of it! ❤️

Thanks so much for all the constructive, compassionate replies and helpful advice. I've got lots of new ideas to try out and I really appreciate the time people took to comment and share their ideas and insights. I feel a lot better about the whole situation now. Mumsnet to the rescue :)

It sounds like he could do with a growth mindset. I really recommend the book You are Awesome by Matthew Syed. Covers building resilience.

my daughter was the same. But did grow out of it. And I suspect has ND and is also Highly intelligent she just couldn’t cope with the not winning.

I have one who also couldn’t handle board games and win/lose scenarios. He hasn’t grown out of it but he’s grown more skilled in avoiding those situations.

He has phenomenal grit and will stick at something he cares about until he figures it out, but likes to do this privately until he has mastered it, and only then will he let you see his skill. I think that trait will stand him in good stead in the adult world and it’s directly related to being unable to shrug off defeat easily.

He’s gifted at organising and leading games, or developing imaginative scenarios. RPGs have been a fantastic outlet.

I’ve noticed that when there is a win/lose aspect, as with Warhammer for instance, it’s very common for the players to sort of soothe each other and do a significant amount of pre emptive relational repair work. What that looks like is pointing out the things the loser has done well, sympathising with the bad luck of the dice rolls and using humorous story telling to describe the outcomes. I suspect a lot of the people drawn to it, or at least the ones in ds’ circle, struggle similarly to lose.

Have you looked at something like grabalo

Ots quick you roll the dice and one person grabs the right figure then you go again.

You basically want to get him
A..more comfortable with losing
B. Better at controlling his emotions

I wonder if he asks to play competitive games as a way to measure his progress against his sister. We know that doesn't really make sense but it could explain his frustration when, yet again, he doesnt win the game. I think all you can do is let him practice losing with the very random & inconsequential games mention by PP.

As for things like keeping everybody waiting and then kicking off if you start without him, I would try a timer, something very visual like an iver-sized egg timer. "DS, we are almost ready to start. I'm setting the timer, when it stops we will start making g pa cakes, whether you are here or not:".

The fact that he can see the timer running out distances you/DD from the decision to start without him.

I knew a kid like this and serious commitment to a sport showed him proper hard-won winning and losing and knocked the home behaviour out of him a bit! There may not be anything he's into like that, but maybe if he pursued something seriously it would help with acceptance. Or something complicated and variable like chess or Werewolf where there are lots of ways to win and lose!
I love the idea of the low-stakes games to desensitise the issue as well.

The thing with most board games OP is that there’s an element of chance (some are pure chance), and this lack of control is really difficult for children to come to terms with. I would go as far as saying it’s developmentally appropriate to be a sore loser, especially if you’re used to being good at stuff.

post after post after post pointing out how awful you are being to your DD.

No reply to that?

ah yes - DD must always behave in an exemplary manner, but he gets to be a little git.

got it.

No, because it doesn't really resonate I'm afraid. DS doesn't ever "get to be a little git" without pushback and DD doesn't have to be perfect or exemplary. I expect decent behaviour from them both and as DD's behaviour is overall much better she gets a lot less grief. Sometimes people incorrectly assess a situation on the internet, and I find it unproductive to engage with that.

you'Re beginning to backtrack. But maybe tomorrow read all your posts.
It is exactly how i and other posters have described.

Stop the boardgames and focus on self affirming games - jigsaws, puzzles, if he likes them. If he doesn't, forget it.

I used to teach my nieces and nephews what to do in each scenario, because they would get very competitive and over react about winning/losing little board games. I taught them if you win, you shake hands and say "Good game", if you lose, you shake hands and say "Good game". We practiced before we started, and they seemed happy with this. I think they seemed happy that they had something to say, that they expected. I think when they would win, they would rub the other one's face in it too much, and when they would lose, they would feel embarrassed/upset and not know what to say. This just gave them some words and actions that they could both expect, and it was the same win or lose. They seemed happy enough with it at the time any way

I would avoid competitive games with them. It's not losing he can't deal with - he shows that in all the other competitive stuff he does, it's losing to his sister and (it sounds) the way he feels he needs to prove himself. There are so many noncompetitive games you can play as a family. Stick to those for a few years until DS is older and try again. But it's not essential for families to play competitive games together.

If you and DH don't have 1:1 time with him, I think starting something up where you regularly do would be invaluable. And the family therapy suggestions, given his statement about not feeling like a part of the family, sound good too.

But I also wonder if you're, perhaps, giving him too much attention when he has a tantrum. I would have thought, at 9 and since it's not something new, that just immediately sending him to his room and letting him calm himself down would be the way to handle it. Maybe acknowledge the feeling - "I can see you're angry, but this isn't okay, you need to go to your room until you're calmer." type of thing. Spending time trying to calm him down is just reinforcing the behaviour, winding him up by the sounds of it, and pretty negative on your DD.

My DS, nearly 11 now, was like this but we've recently turned a corner. In his case his sister is 4 years older than him and when he was really little we would let him win at things like snap or dobble from time to time (not always). As he grew up and we started playing more complicated games he realised that she was generally better at more logic, puzzle type games (due to being older and just more experienced at them). There aren't always ways that you can let someone win, just to give them a bit of a break from always losing, so he started to get deflated and started to pre-empt losing and having tantrums quite early on in the game.

DD started refusing to play games with him or would give him one chance to play without crying and if he did cry she would refuse again for weeks. That really seemed to motivate him to try not to cry and to enjoy the game for its own sake. I played some games with him 1:1 to model good winning and losing behaviour and let him practice not caring about the outcome. We also make sure that we plsy a fair amount of games where chance plays a big part so he's naturally not losing all the time. He really does love just the process of playing a game so it is something he has really worked on himself.

Is it any wonder that there is so much violence and abuse towards women and girls? This is often where it starts, so many Mothers making excuses for their sons poor behaviour. What are you teaching him? That’s it’s ok to lose his temper and kick off because there are no consequences, no apology needed. Your poor DD…