Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Aspergers - Can't handle "losing" at sports

Hi all!

My dear friend, with a HG+ son diagnosed with aspergers, sent me this email tonight. Rather than try to speak for herself - I thought I would post it below.

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So ds7 had his first soccer practice. DH went. He said it was a disaster. He actually said it went fine until they did a game where people would win or lose. When ds7 lost, I guess he threw a major fit and he couldn't calm down. I did a little research tonight on aspergers and losing. Sounds like it might be common. Would you mind sending a question to your gifted forum if other 2e kids (on the autism spectrum or aspergers particulary) have problems losing in sports and what they've found helps!

If this is too much, don't worry about it. Thought some of your cyber friends may have some good advice!

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On a personal note, while my own dd6 is not considered aspergers, her extreme emotional sensitivity makes her a terrible loser. It's something we are constantly working on with her. So maybe it's a gifted thing as well?

Anyone else with advice/thoughts? I will send my friend this link so she can ready any/all replies.

One place to start would be with looking at social stories. Google losing and social story and you will pull up a few links. Here's one: http://www.boardmakershare.com/64624/Winning-and-Losing-Social-Story

And, just by way of encouragement this was a huge issue here at that age and eventually it faded. Learning some rote phrases "good game" etc. made a big difference. I would suggest giving information and then opportunities to practice how to react again and again.

Thanks for the encouragement, passthepotatoes.

I will certainly send your idea along.

My DS had the same issue at that age. It is mostly gone. I wouldn't say he's learned to lose, though, so much as he's learned there is another opportunity to win. The biggest issue we had was that if his team lost, he would take all the responsibility on himself (i.e. he didn't play well enough, he was a bad soccer player, he couldn't do his part).

DS6 is a perfectionist and not on the spectrum. He's also very sensitive (OE). He HATES to lose and has been known, at home at least, to throw a tantrum when he does (or throw the cards in and yell "I'm not playing anymore"). However, he's only had one public tantrum, when he was four, and had his first baseball game. Ever since, he's been on a losing team and has never had an issue.

Irisheyes, I have my own 2e autism DS7 and losing has always been a big deal. We recently finished up a 9 month long social skills group class that dealt with that (among other things), and he is MUCH better at it. Practicing losing over and over again in small activities is the best "treatment" for helping prevent major meltdowns in a soccer game. Sometimes I can hear him on the verge of getting upset about losing, and I can say, "What would you say if you lost?" and it helps him focus and hold it together. There is not an easy cure for it, just lots and lots of consistency and practice. Nan

Adding this: the kind of upset that an aspie can show is so different from other kids tantrums. My son will scream so loud that your ears ring for minutes, he will knock stuff off the table (or while at a soccer game throw the plastic cups all over or tip over the water), be verbally abusive and scream, "I hate soccer, why did you make me play this stupid game," and NOT STOP this after the normal tantrum time of about 20 seconds. And it is completely over the top for not kicking the ball at the right time or losing the game. It is extremely embarrassing to have your child look like a completely spoiled rotten kid in a situation like that...but in order to work through it and have him lose a game with dignity, you have to keep pushing through these episodes. Nan

irisheyes, my DS8 has high functioning autism and is also struggling with this, for years now. We've done several sports thinking the practice losing will help him eventually learn to cope, as well as direct teaching of good sportstamanship.. We've discovered that the social damage of the kids on his team seeing him meltdown over and over is really not worth it at this point. We feel that if he was truly "ready" he would have gotten it, So we are focusing on non-competitive sports, such as instructional swimming. We are also looking into some special needs teams because their season is shorter and its less cutthroat overall.

Another coping tactic is to think about what you can work on to do better next time. Do you spend time venting or planning the next game?

Mathematically, half of the teams will lose. That is the nature of the game.

I think the tantrums will happen. my dc hates to lose also.

What we do afterwards, when its all over, maybe a bit of time after dinner to gently discuss our feelings of how it felt. Then together brainstorm some ideas of what to try next time.

I was like that as a child but didn't really get any "help" to figure out my emotions and what I could do to learn to expect and control them.

The more practice the child has in "losing" then it won't be as quite a shock. Sometimes, I think, because the child intensely worked hard, tried very very hard, and the disappointment is just too much. Also, their intellect demands a lot from their little selves. So, for us, forgiving oneself, try again next time, despite losing it was a good "game" ... etc etc.

We have found that, with time and experience, it has helped. We work on "Just do your best" but that doesn't mean you'll win, get recognized, etc etc ... but to have a self-satisfaction of working hard and that is all one can do.

Hope that helps.

This is definitely a standard feature of Asperger's. And a hard one to deal with.

Some thoughts:

--Soccer is an extremely hard sport for an overexcitable kid. It's overstimulating, the whole game keeps changing direction around him (disorienting), and he is getting inadvertently kicked a lot. All that increases the likelihood of coping problems.

-- Losing at board games is an easier first skill because it doesn't have the physical and sensory overkill. Still, it takes practice. We started here.

--In sports we focused first on fitness and individual sports (swimming) and then turned to things like golf, which is a good one because if you lose you have only yourself to blame. After he had some skills in controlling his own frustration when he missed a shot, we taught him to compliment others' shots when they were good, then started golf play dates with other kids.

--We also let him watch us lose at both board games and sports and model the process for him; then we let him rate our performance as good or poor losers.

--Core skills include: knowing it's not the end of the world to lose (only experience teaches this); valuing others' achievements and complimenting them; being able to keep one's perfectionism about one's own contribution under control. We look for situations where we can practice each of these components separately, as well as together in a game context.

HTH,
DeeDee

That's some good advice. I like it when they outline clear steps how to get from here to there. I don't have this situation. I just wanted to say what a practical sounding solution you posted.

I appreciate all of these thoughts and I know my friend does, too.

I would say her son falls more in line with the advice of DeeDee and Renie, where this may just not be the sports situation for him.

I, on the other hand, appreciate the other posters advice for my dd6. We've been playing Candy Land a lot with her and dd4 and noticed some considerable improvement in her sore-losing as I've implemented some of the ideas you mentioned!

Thanks!