5 year old kicking off if he doesn’t win

[Midlifecrisis2026]

I have a 5 year old stepson. Me, him and his sister were playing hungry hippos yesterday and he started crying as we were getting more ‘food’ than him and he basically wasn’t winning.
he started proper bawling, OTT, over emphasised crocodile tears, he threw the game in the air, walked in the dining room screaming and tried to throw a chair in his frustration.

His dad tried to calm him down but he wasn’t having any of it.

he’s got this thing about always winning and will cheat to ensure he does, or blatantly lie that he has.

he’s going into year 1 at school.

he’s very bright and will get praise for doing things right. Have we caused this? He’s hit a child at school too in frustration.

generally he’s very well mannered and well behaved but when it comes to winning, he’s obsessed.

how would you have managed yesterday’s behaviour and this behaviour going forward?
His mum has told me she calls it ‘unnecessary tears’ when he cries for no reason and doesn’t stand for it. I wouldn’t say she’s particularly soft on him when he plays up.

thanks

Ignoring the winner seems a bit unfair. What if the winner is another child?

What was the parents divorce like? Did this behaviour start at that time?

Tell him if he cheats he has already lost. So by cheating he is giving up the chance to win. Ask him how he would feel if you cheated him?

lots of good advice in this thread

i'd also cut back on the competitive board games a lot and look for other activities that don't involve winning. in a year he will be that much more mature and can try again.

Good idea thanks. Although he denies cheating!

Sadly they separated when he was only a few months old so he never knew them as being together.

Some good techniques on this thread, but I think it's also worth remembering that this is very common among kids this age and not something to worry about too much.

That is a tough dynamic for him. Cut him some slack, he's probably got some big feelings going on when he visits your house.

My middle son was a sore loser when little - he joined a football team at 5/6 and this is what taught him to be a gracious loser! He didn't want to have a tantrum and look like a big baby amongst his peers - they had to shake hands with the other team and say well done if they lost. He grew to accept losing and would say 'they deserved to win, they were better than us'. He still preferred winning though! He's a grown man now and still very competitive but knows how to lose graciously.

My DS was like this, he’s very competitive but it took the fun out of any game we played. In the end I told him that losing is part of life and people won’t want to play with him if he has a tantrum because he loses.

He’s mainly grown out of it and sometimes has a mild sulk but nothing like before.

MIL used to always rig games so he won but I put a stop to that, I’m not having people pander to him as it would just make it worse, he needed to get over it!

Not speaking from a parent's perspective, but Ive had quite a few anxious parents ask me about this with their own child at school. Quite often it's a complete shock to me as the child doesn't behave like that at all in school! They are quite happy to have other children win- just not their siblings!

(Obviously there are some who can't cope so usually I pair up so they never lose alone, avoid games with winners and losers or edit the rules so they're all working together)

No idea what you can do at home though!

We used to have a game at the nursery think it was snails pace it was the snails who raced not people you didn’t have your own snail you took it in turns to throw the dice and you moved whichever snail had that colour so you always had something to move when it was your turn. The snail that didn’t move much always caused great hilarity

My ex husband used to be like this too!

Does he like bluey? There is an episode about pass the parcel which is good and talks about losing etc.

My daughters friend was exactly like this and has only just outgrown the behaviour at 14! Parents and teachers tried everything they could and nothing worked. She is an only child and very spoiled. Even her friends laughing and calling her ridiculous didnt help she just couldn't accept not winning . The behaviour has now stopped and as soon as they went into secondary school it started to improve immensely.

He has to learn to lump it, that’s life. Don’t pander to him, see how Donald Trump turned out.

Team games, so the person on the same team as your DS can model how to be a good loser. It might be too much pressure to be the person losing when it’s just him.

He doesn’t know any different. And this was at his nan’s house anyway.

Please don’t ignore it - face it head on! I recently had a child join year 5 in my class who was exactly the seem - speaking to parents they had always let him win so that they didn’t face the tantrum! It only took a couple of weeks of playing class games for him to realise that he would lose and would get no attention if he wailed (yes believe me a 9 year old wailing!). We played as many games as possible in the first couple of weeks so that he could learn to loose - at the end of the year now and he can even hack me jokingly calling him the loser and laughing!

I’d be doing lots of ‘incidental talk’ about the good behaviour of other people when they lose. For example if he follows a football team, not commenting on when they win but talking about being good losers when they lose. Also lots of praise when others are good losers and withdraw from giving too much attention when people win.

Oh god, does it not stop in adulthood!

Yes he loves Bluey! Thanks for the heads up

One of mine was like this about losing. We actually practiced with him losing games. So we played games where he knew he would lose and he practiced congratulating the other person. He found that easier because he knew he would lose and so he could practise being a good loser without to much emotion and then put it into action in real games. We gave him loads of praise for being a good loser as well and playing well (along with praising the winner!). Games that gave multiple rounds like Uno, telestrations etc also take the pressure off.

My elder two learnt to play games when I was a childminder so they quickly learned that they would won some lose some. I’d stopped childminder by time o had my youngest and he struggled much more because he mostly played with adults who let him win when he was a toddler so he didn’t experience losing .
i would continue to play and praise/ role model acceptance of losing. Any strops and he is not allowed to play (but others continue) but he can play the next game providing he doesn’t have a tantrum.

My dd was like this. I told her we couldn't play games until she was better at losing!
She grew up into a nice child, not scarred