Sore Losers: How to help them cope with competition
Leo is the worst sore loser. We can't play any family games because he goes nuts if he doesn't win. Even though he's great at soccer and makes a lot of goals, the second someone blocks one of his attempts to get the ball into the net he starts screaming that it's unfair and storms off the field. It's embarrassing and I worry about how other kids see him and if they are going to want to stop playing with him.
Being a perfectionist and having a very low tolerance for losing go hand-in-hand and makes competitive activities especially stressful for kids who struggle with these issues. To cope and protect themselves from the discomfort and shame that gets triggered when they lose, highly sensitive (HS) kids try to manipulate the game to win (aka "cheat") or they get angry and quit. In a time long ago, before COVID, I was playing Connect Four with five-year-old Lucy on a home visit. She made the first move. When it was my turn, I dropped my piece into the slot next to hers—the obvious move. Lucy immediately got revved up and explained, “No, Ms. Claire, I tell you where you can put your pieces.”
What you can do:
Acknowledge and accept your child's feelings. It is very important not to miss this first step of validation. “Losing feels really hard. It makes you very upset and angry and you want to stop playing.” You have to start where your child is at if you want to open her up to rethinking her reaction.
Reality test. At the same time, explain that losing is a part of life. It happens to everyone, and you can help her learn to cope in these moments so that she can enjoy a whole range of activities and not feel the need to quit.
Tell the story of what happened. Recount the experience matter-of-factly, without judgment. This helps children look at these situations more objectively. "You kicked the ball. Ellie blocked it from going into the goal. That was frustrating and upsetting to you. You wanted to make a goal so badly. Your feelings were so big and overwhelming that you decided not to play anymore."
Help your child think through the natural outcome of her choices. If you're like most parents, because you love your child so much and worry about the negative consequences of her being a sore loser, your knee-jerk reaction might be to start schooling her on the negative outcome of her reactions: "No one is going to want to play with you." "You'll never get better at soccer if you keep quitting." But these kinds of responses are likely to increase your child's feelings of shame and result in a defensive posture that doesn't help your child work through her feelings. Instead, after recounting the story of what happened, ask questions that get her wheels turning, such as: "After you quit the game, what happened? How did you feel? What do you think the other kids were thinking? Is there a different way you would have liked it to end? How could you make that happen?" Approaching it this way—seeking to understand without criticism or judgment—provides an opportunity for your child to make connections between her actions and their outcomes. In my encounter with Lucy, I responded: “Hmm…It’s not really fun for me to play the game if I can’t make my own choices. So let me know whether you are okay with us each being in charge of what we do when it’s our turn, or we can choose something else to play. Why don't you take a minute to think about what you'd like to do.” Being able to look at the natural consequences of her actions without feeling shamed or judged, Lucy decided to keep playing and let me decide where to put my discs. (But she couldn't resist asking me at every move whether I really wanted to choose that space!)
Related to this constellation of behaviors is the tendency for HS children to also tease others when they fail. They might laugh at a peer who misses the ball thrown to him or who gives the wrong answer to a question at school. When they see peers struggling, it triggers their own feelings of vulnerability. Projecting these feelings onto others is a way to cope with difficult emotions that are hard to tolerate. While your knee-jerk reaction may be to come down hard on your child for being unkind, that can backfire. The shame children experience when being reprimanded shuts them down. They become very defensive. This doesn’t lead to any learning or positive change. I find that the most effective way to respond when your child makes fun of others is to help him think through the encounter without any criticism or judgment: “Malcolm missed the goal. How do you think that made him feel?” “What’s it like for you when you make a mistake or don’t do something perfectly?” “How do you think Malcolm felt when you made fun of his missing the goal?” This opens children up to reflect on their actions which makes it much more likely they will ultimately change their mindset and thus their behavior.
This article is part of a series on understanding and supporting highly sensitive children. You can check out other installments in this series, here.