is favouritism ever ok?

[gigglinggoblin]

ds is 7. he goes to beavers and i stay to help. the beaver with the neatest necker wins a trophy. tonight he ironed his own necker and it was pretty good, however not the best and he didnt win. he really wanted the trophy and did not react well when someone else got it. might be worth pointing out at this point he has aspergers so not just a spoilt brat tantrum. i suspect the child who won did not actually do anything themselves to win, it was down to parents. i dont actually know this tho

so next week, assuming he does his own ironing again (it was v closely supervised btw!) would you award him the trophy cos you know he tried or give it to the person who really had the neatest necker? and if its someone else deciding would you ask them to fix it?

i think that it would be wrong to fix it.

but, could you have another trophy for best effort?

cant see best effort happening, theres no way of knowing!

i think it would be wrong to fix it. but am then wondering if i should iron it and make it the neatest which isnt exactly fixing but is not really encouraging him to do stuff. but then if he doesnt win i can see him giving up.

this is a bigger issue to me than it ought to be

I think it's a bit of silly thing to give a trophy for. Seriously, can't somethig a bit more child-friendly be thought up?

they are trying to get them wearing uniforms and smarten themselves up generally. trophy has been given for other things in the past like who has been most helpful.

hmm perhaps you could give the trophy for something different each week?
they won't know until they get there.
so one week it'd be neatest necker, next it would be neatest shirt and erm, other stuff?

I think you could raise this with the other helpers/organisers in terms of thinking how you can award trophies for stuff that the kids actually do themselves. you can also give him your own prize/treat/reward for ironing his own tie

Could you get ds to focus on a more acheivable target? SO if it's for helpfulness, put a big effort in (and maybe big it up to the leaders) but if it's neat necktie, tell ds to look smart but not to aim for the trophy this itme round?

he wants to win neatest necker and its tied in with general helping round the house they try to teach. they wear sweatshirts so its hard for them to be smarter or scruffier than each other in that respect. i did make a huge fuss of him doing it but he tends to get tunnel vision about one thing and if its not the trophy it isnt good enough.

i dont know how upset i would be if my child lost out to someone elses cos they had put a word in, but he has made such an effort and it is really important to him

it's tough but are you going to spend the rest of your life following him around trying to fix things he doesn't win? You can't obviously, so let him learn one of life's lessons now when you can help him deal wtih it. He will learn this lesson and it may be much harsher than this, so let it happen as it should. I worked with so many people over the years who I am sure, their parents fixed things for them, and they were not a success at work. I have an asbergers child too, all the more reason to teach him early how to deal wtih disappointments and doing things well and your best is the reward isn't it anyway, not a trophy.

that makes a lot of sense christie. i suppose i just feel bad cos i could fix it and by encouraging him to do it himself i am actually making it less likely he will win, which seems stupid and is setting him up for disappointment. might mention trophy topic atm is rather unfair and see if we can change it to something else. i would love to follow him round for the rest of his life fixing things but i am obviously not going to. you are right, i need to get a grip!