Can your children be too competitive and if so how do you stop it ?

[lilyloo]

DS 6 has always liked to win.

This can be anything from a board game to football.

Now he does football twice a week and he get's very emtional about it. If he is winning that's fine but if he is loosing then he get's himself all worked up and it usually ends in tears.
I have spoken to him about this and how he needs to enjoy the game rather than take it so seriously.

On the one hand i don't like this need to win but on the other i know they need an element of passion about what they do esp sport etc.

I would teach him to hide from others that he hates losing, so that people will think he's a good sport. But why do you not like the need to win? In 30 years time, it could be what made him the boss instead of a wage slave worker ant.

Nighby true !

He does need to hide it from others but how can i do that. I don't mind it but it seems to be getting out of hand.

For example when he plays football he is quite happy to boast about it when he wins to the point of getting on others nerves i feel. I have spoken to him about this and how he can hurt others feelings etc and that it is ok to be happy he has won but not to rub others face in it that they have lost.

Then yesterday i picked him up from a party and he is literally in floods of tears because he hadn't won a game and someone was 'showing off' (his words) about it.

It's not so much i don't like it i just would rather he enjoyed the game rather than winning be the main thing.

Is it a big deal or am i just expecting too much of a 6 year old , i don't know.

I think it's 6 year old boys. DS2 is the same - it drives us absolutely mad. If ds3 'beats' him up the stairs it's a trauma- and if one of us win at Ben 10 top trumps OMG.

The funniest time was when ds1 (severely autistic so ds2 thinks it's his right to beat ds1) beat him at Hungry Hippos. Using his feet.

jimjam so prob just leave him to work it out himself then !

I do talk to ds2 quite a bit about the need to be gracious in defeat. But he is hopeless. I am hoping he will learn soon as he starts to enter public competitions for hobby's etc.

He now thinks he can be gracious and say 'well done' to someone who has won - providing they say 'well done for trying' to him . I sometimes look a little exasperated when trying to teach this life lesson

Jimjam that's exactly how i feel too.
It's a case of in one ear out the other