Help my sensitive 10 year old

[justaskingaquestion]

I'm at an absolute loss with my very lovely 10 year old. He's a bright and able kid, academic work comes easy to him and he rarely struggles at school. He seems popular at school - has a lovely group of close friends but seems to be liked by all, plays with a wide variety of people.

He seems to have absolutely zero confidence in himself though and it's becoming such a worry. The main examples seem to be related to sports;

Swimming: his teacher came over to tell me he was going up a group - he burst into tears. Said he was worried about it. The poor swimming teacher felt awful, talked him down and all was fine.

He plays two sports. The main one is fairly physical - he isn't a physical child but maintains he loves it. Is devastated if training is cancelled, is annoyed if he isn't picked to play. He's absolutely not putting this on, I can tell. But whenever he trains or plays, he spends 50% of the time in tears. If something goes a tiny bit wrong for him, he cries. If he perceives he hasn't done well, he cries. He cries with nerves before the match. Rolls on the floor in faux frustration. If he feels he is going particularly badly he feigns injuries. It absolutely cannot go on. He's letting himself down. I am fine with crying for a reason, but this is ridiculous.

Training was cancelled tonight, he was annoyed. We said he had a match on Sunday, he perked up. 4 hours later he's come downstairs from bed in floods of tears saying he is worried about the match/what if I don't do well/ive had a terrible season.

We've been nice, talked it through, showed him videos of professionals playing and getting things wrong, bigged him up, given him ample opportunities to stop playing (always met with more tears and protestations he doesn't want to), told him we will make the decision for him, and on occasion we've not been sympathetic. In our defence, he cries a lot, always about these things and it wears you down. But obviously I regret it and have apologised and spoken to him calmly afterwards. We've given him carte blanche to try ANY other sports he might be interested in - he can't think of one he wants to try.

How can I help him? I just want him to be happy!

Thanks in advance for any bright ideas.

What a rollercoaster of emotions! Must be exhausting for all of you. From what you say, Def sounds like he's worried about not being the best at something or letting people down. In which case you sound to be doing exactly what I would do.

Only thing I can think of are :
Modelling talking to yourself kindly after something goes wrong, or losing a board game/video game.

How do you feel about speaking to the other coaches? They likely have dealt with hundreds of kids and have some insight or be able to say something to them.

This resonates with me so much and I have nearly posted so many times about my own son, also 10, who sounds remarkably similar.

He's also academic and puts a huge amount of pressure on himself to excel, gets incredibly upset if he gets things wrong (which of course he does because he's 10!).

Like you, sport is a particular pressure point. He's fit, healthy and active and does a mix of team and individual sports but being honest is probably fairly average in terms of ability. It doesn't help that his friendship group is made up of some particularly talented and sporty kids. He gets very upset about what he perceives as a poor performance, cries, storms off, asks to be subbed. I dread taking him but he seems to want to go.

The hardest thing is the way he talks about himself. Calls himself dumb and stupid if he can't work out a complicated maths sum in his head. Calls himself rubbish and fat (he's not) if he makes a mistake in a game. It's utterly heartbreaking. I don't think he's being bullied or particularly teased in school. He's always been extremely popular and has lots of friends who are lovely.

I've talked to him about it many, many times. Told him how much we love him, just for being him. Praised him and complimented his many talents. Like you, I've also got cross about it because I'm really at my wits end about how to help him. It seems to have got worse this academic year. Year 4 was definitely better.

In our case, I think part of the issue is a hugely successful older brother who seems to excel at everything with ease. I've had all the chats about his individual talents and skills, about focusing on himself and not comparing or competing with anyone but nothing seems to go in.

I'm afraid that I don't have any real advice but I just wanted to share my own experience.

Gosh, the nerves thing too also. Being sick before matches, shaking with nerves, almost frozen with fear while the rest of the team are just excited about playing!

Thank you, these are the kindest responses!

@stargazer02 I absolutely get what you're saying about modelling behaviour and that's interesting. Neither myself or my husband really react if things go wrong, we're fairly laid back. But maybe I need to verbalise it and model how to deal with it.

As for the other coaches, it's more of a parent volunteer thing - the club pays for them to do their coaching qualifications so none of them are particularly experienced. A couple of the guys are pretty good with him to be fair but I'm not sure they've got any insights.

And @5minutesofquiet I'm sorry you're in the same boat, but knowing I'm not alone has made me feel weirdly better! A lot of what you've said really resonates, in particular about the older sibling who is an achiever. Oh, it's such a worry! I just wish I could help him!

@5minutesofquiet you saying year 4 was better is interesting. He has a teacher this year who isn't his favourite. I do wonder if the extra pressure to perform at school (where largely he manages to keep his emotions under control!) isn't helping. His year 4 teacher was simply incredible. The best teacher we've ever encountered and his confidence in his abilities soared.

I'm glad it's helped a bit. I also feel reassured that I'm not alone too!

Interestingly we've had a change of teacher this year too. While the teacher seems fine, the previous one was amazing and he'd been in her class for 4 years- so a really huge change for him. She knew my son really well and I felt that she really genuinely liked him.

My DS has always been a bit sensitive and prone to over-reaction. I assumed he'd grow out of it. But just wanted to make the point that this isn't a new thing for us.

One thing I've realised is that he needs to process stuff on his own. Talking doesn't help and if anything, makes it worse. But if I leave him alone for a while and then approach it again things can be better. Of course this is difficult to do when you're in the middle of a match but ok when it's a tantrum about a maths question. I'm exactly the same though - if I'm upset, I just want to be on my own. What I'm struggling with, like you, is how to help him not get upset in the first place!

Dear OP, I married a man who I think was probably a lot like your son as a child, (except for the crying part). I think they are sensitive males who are high achieving and want to be the best in everything they do and are perfectionists. They also do not know how to accept failure and feel diminished if they do.

Now being a high achiever is definitely a quality but these poor guys put so much pressure on themselves they make themselves sick. It is not something that goes away by itself and I wish my own DH could have talked to a therapist as a child. He is very successful at many things , so much so that now as an adult he cannot take any criticism whatsoever and can be a nightmare to live with!

I recommend that you have your child seen by a child psychiatrist to nip this in the bud. It is too late for my DH, but not for your child, who is obviously suffering unnecessarily. For some reason they have a huge difficulty in accepting themselves as they are and make themselves miserable because of it. I really don't know why but a child psychologist or psychiatrist probably would! Best of luck.