Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Sore loser

My DS6 does not handle losing. He plays chess very well, and he will be completing in a tournament soon so we've been practising. Whenever he loses, or can foresee himself losing, he doesn't want to play anymore and refuses to shake his opponent's hand. I try to explain that he is playing against adults who can play well (and, honestly, he gives my husband and I a good game), so he clearly plays well, too; and just because he doesn't win every game doesn't mean that he isn't good. Now he doesn't want to compete at the tournament because he doesn't want to lose in front of others.

My son only reacts this way to games he plays well. Basketball took him two years to master and he had great determination to do so; so he had no problems handling losses with that.

Is this something that he will grow out of? Or can he learn to be gracious?

Hmmmm...


I was a kid like this. Things I didn't possess a mindset of "ownership/mastery" of, I could take criticism and loss quite well with.

Those areas where I had personal investment into my self-image as a "good _______" though, I could NOT tolerate loss, because that threatened my (fragile) self-worth and self-image.

It's a perfectionism thing, basically, as well as a matter of asynchronous emotional development. After all, how many adults do you know that interpret one less-than-stellar performance as an indicator that they are "destined to fail at ____"?

But kids do. Bright kids who tend to be analytical in particular seem prone to this-- because they can't ignore the "evidence" (the loss/critique) in front of them, and have to process it.


HG+ kids in particular have the problem that they-- rightly-- adopt a domain as part of their identities... but WRONGLY assume perfection is attainable in that domain via a fixed mindset.

Yes, it can get better-- but you have to tolerate a lot of age-appropriate tantrums and sulks over the psychological hurts that setbacks deal out. You also have to budge that fixed mindset and nudge it toward a healthier growth mindset in the domains that he associates with his self-image. LEARNING and BEING GOOD AT are not mutually exclusive categories, right? But it can feel that way to HG+ kids with extraordinary skills in a particular domain-- the "knowing" gets the attention, not the learning.

There was nothing that I loathed more than having a teacher tear into my writing in middle school. NOTHING. Sports? Meh. I hated private music lessons, too-- because all the focus was on my errors. It was awful to endure that when I was accustomed to accolades in that domain.

Thanks for the advice, HowlerKarma. I'm finding this a difficult one to solve.

I will be hated for admitting this, but my son has never had tantrums. He has always been a calm, sensible baby/toddler/child. Even when he was three and four he could play Uno and handle losing. He is so mature, and has amazing self-discipline and self-control that I admit that I actually like seeing this side of him, it makes him more human (and like my little baby :))

I just don't like how bad it makes him feel; I also don't want him to be rude on the day. I am hoping that he will realise he's not at home, and that he will act accordingly to beloved rules lol.

Both my kids were like that, and they're much better now (they're almost 9 and 10).

Speaking of chess, when my DS was six, if he thought he would lose, he'd move his king in the line of fire (ie chess suicide) to end the game so he could start a new one. LOL. (sigh)

DD (then 7), meanwhile, would get SO ANGRY when he'd beat her that she'd refuse to play anymore.

They've really grown and mellowed in the last few years, thank goodness.

Btw, it used to be really embarrassing... my sympathies to anyone currently going through this: all the other little kids were mellow and well behaved, but not my two.

I understand and recognize this behavior, I think HK was right on. CCN, if my dd6 knew that was possible she would do it! (I thought it was against the rules...) So I do think kids can mature out of it. But I think this kind of perfectionism carries a big risk when kids can give up on the thing that they may have the most natural talent and affinity for out of fear of failure. It makes me sad. I will say that dd12 has gotten much better as she has gotten older due to a similar approach to HK.

Yes, very much what HK said.

If he's never been one for tantrums about losing other games, but is doing it at chess, I would suspect it's because a bigger deal has been made (maybe not to his face, but kids hear stuff) about how GOOD he is at chess. Other games are kid games, not a big deal. Chess, he's in grown-up territory. And as a perfectionist, I can tell you that if you're known to be GOOD at something, and you lose, that is incontrovertible proof that you are clearly stupid and incompetent, and it's time for a tantrum.

Nautigal, that's very true. And he doesn't have tantrums about other games or anything in life- just chess. I know he plays at school during lunch, perhaps one of the teachers have said something.

I did also wonder if it's because he doesn't think my husband should be able to beat him; I think my son thinks he smarter than my husband. I rarely win (LOL) against my son, so it's okay because mostly lose.

I find a lot of my DS4 perfectionism is only happens when he is with his mother and I. He wouldn't learn to catch a ball because it meant he would drop it before getting better but he now goes to an after school sports thingy and picks it up in no time. He won't go without training wheels because it means he will have to take a few falls (on grass in our backyard) before getting the hang of things but at same after school group he is going without training wheels, falling on concrete and just getting on with it. Lets not talk about chess or boardgames or such things. Heck even when watching a football game he won't pick a team to go for until it is fairly obvious who is going to win.

On a funny side note. He, and a HG+ friend of his, played snakes and ladders a few months back and it was almost tears from both of them everytime one of them struck a snake. Madness!!

Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by saying he mastered basketball between 4 and 6?

KJP, he started playing bball when he was four, and just...couldn't do anything lol! Even run properly. He couldn't dribble, or even just bounce the ball once higher than his ankles; he couldn't shoot (no higher than a foot from his head), or pass to others. But he didn't give up. He was very good at cricket- like, amazingly good considering his bball skills- but he quit cricket to play bball. And now, he can play really well. So well, he's been invited to play on a proper team. It only took him two years lol.