Help for sore losers?

[Alexigail]

I'm looking for resources to help my son.  He's 7 and HATES to lose. Has anyone dealt with this?  My 9 year old would really like to play board games with him but it's always a disaster.  I'm going to start focusing on it this week and try to work on being a good sport etc.  I'd love to hear about any resources you've used or things you've tried.  

I should mention that he's on the autism spectrum which does come into play, but I think he'd respond well to correction.  I'm just pointing out that it's not a discipline issue, per say.  It's more of a developmental thing.  His maturity is more like a 5 or 6 year old, but this problem is holding him back socially and I've had to intervene a lot more than I'd like when he plays with friends.  I'd like to address it as more of a character/skill building thing and maybe incorporate it into our school day.  Thanks!

[Farrar]

My kids struggled with that at age 4-6 or so. I felt like having a strong routine helped make it better. Game's over, everyone shakes hands and says "Good game." I used to model these over-exaggerated disappointed things when I lost, "Gee, I thought I was going to win! Guess I'll have to try again! I'll see if I can get you next time!" Eventually the kids adopted those habits and started to grow out of it.

 

I don't know how being on the spectrum would play into that... but I'm thinking having a very specific game is over ritual might help.

[maize]

Maturity is the only thing I have seen make much difference with this.

 

Could you get some cooperative board games for the kids to play?

[Junie]

At our house, the winner is responsible for cleaning up and putting the game away.  This seems to help the loser feel better.  Also, if a second round is played, the loser goes first.  (In the first round, the youngest always goes first.)

[marbel]

Time and growing up a bit is what did it for us.   Well, and just refusing to play for a while.   "No, we don't want to play that game with you.  You get too angry if things don't go your way."   "We'd play more games if you weren't such a sore loser."  "It not fun when you get angry."  

 

Now, we can laugh about it.  

[mommymonster]

Time truly did help, as did cooperative games (everyone working together to "win" against the game). 

 

We also started playing UNO ... frequently. Like four or five "hands" in a row in a sitting. The games take only a few minutes (you can do five or six cards per hand, "winner" is the person who is out of cards first, no counting points), and it's easy to win and lose enough in a sitting that you realize it just. doesn't. matter. We also played hundreds of games of tic-tac-toe. Games are a way to pass time. It's not important who winds or loses. At least that's what we go with. 

 

[HomeAgain]

Yep, time.

 

Although for mine, what helped what having a strict procedure of what to do during a loss/win.  No matter what, you always hold your hand out and say "good game".  It had to happen before the game was officially "over" (play being done, but there's still that final act).  Once he got that down his tantrums decreased to being only about half the time.  Now they're next to non-existent, but having a rule of play helped immensely.

[6packofun]

Yeah, that's common in my house.  One thing we always did to sort of lighten things up is to talk about the game right as or after it's ending--hopefully, BEFORE the meltdown of agony.  I coached the older kids to join me in talking about how exciting the action was or saying who was good at which strategy or even give fake "awards" for things like the person who lost a turn the most or the one with the best idea for (fill in the blank) or best poker face, particularly for all the players who did not win.  Just lighthearted recaps of the game to show it was fun PLAYING together even for those who lost and then we basically change the subject after we put the game away and MOVE ON.  lol