Insights into winning/losing, contests, sports, board games.

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DS has a problem with any kind of contest or competition - this is the one way in which his difference is an actual disability. Any situation where someone wins is a nearly guaranteed meltdown; he is 10 now but this has been going on since he was very, very little.

We have changed our lives considerably to accommodate this issue: we don't play board games at home (very occasionally he is able to play with friends) we don't allow him to enter contests, we don't do raffles, this year we skipped the school's fall festival entirely because it had too many carnival games (even though typically you get a prize even if you lose.) We have pulled him out of team sports.

We do make exceptions to this rule, because he needs to learn to deal with it (sometimes winning is just as upsetting to him as losing) but it nearly always results in a meltdown. Any insight?

This is my husband. He is normally a very laid back and reasonable kind of guy, but not when it comes to a competition. He has to win or he literally has a meltdown. He doesn't kick and scream, but he has to leave the situation and gather himself for at least half an hour or so. We have adjusted our lifestyles around this and I completely avoid playing any sort of game with him.

Now that we have kids, he's mellowed out a tiny bit. He still can't bring himself to ever let the kids (or anyone else) win, but on the rare occasion that he looses, he handles it much better. He still tends to avoid it altogether, though. I think it has taken the added responsibility of parenthood for him to realize the importance of being a good role model. Without kids, I'm pretty sure he'd still have total meltdowns.

I remember early in our relationship trying to reason with him on the matter, but to no avail. It was just part of his wiring and I had to accept it. I don't know that forcing the issue would really help. I also doubt that it would even work. Of course it's ideal to be a good sport, but I don't think it's something that everyone is even capable of being. I don't think it has anything to do with not caring about the other person's/team's feelings, but rather it's an inability to process your own loss with instant grace. Try not to fault him for this. By all means encourage him to do the right thing, socially, but don't hold him to impossible standards. It may actually be best to try to avoid competitive situations, and that's ok.

Maybe social stories could help, but aside from that, I don't have any other good suggestions. Sorry, and good luck!

In our family, it is my NT daughter who can't deal with losing. I'm not sure there is a good way to deal with it. We keep talking about it, and we work on her self-esteem overall. Sometimes we play and let her win. Mostly we avoid, unless she "promises" she won't get upset if she loses.

The added layer that might happen with an AS child, and that I noticed in my son, is that the pre-planning thing actually makes it worse. My son always dreams up these fancy new strategies that he used to think would finally "guarantee" the win. He has such firm belief in his own logic, that he figured all he had to do was work the problem out better. Which left him disappointed not only that he lost, but in realizing he hadn't managed to actually solve the problem. At this age he's simply accepted that he is a terrible strategist, mostly because he doesn't adequately anticipate what the other players might do, or the effect of sheer luck. So, he's past it now and enters play with no expectation of winning (but he still tries!).

Unfortunately, with my daughter, the specific roadblock isn't as transparent, so no solution seems to be imminent.,

Our OT advised us to get some more simple board games and play them with DS. He is younger than your son (4) so his problem isn't as much hating to lose (though he does) it is more that he can't take turns and follow the rules of the game. We choose the games and the times we play them (when the 4 yo is in a good mood and doing well) very carefully and don't do it a lot. Whenever it starts to disintegrate, either becasue he is losing or because he can't wait his turn, I end the game and put it away. With more exposure a little bit at a time, he has started to do better. We played Candyland the other night and even though the NT 7 yo son won, the 4 yo was OK as long as I let him keep drawing cards until he reached the end too!

The other problem we have is that my 2 boys are always comparing things - "I got a bigger piece of pizza than you" e.g. which is typical little boy behavior but when 7 yo starts it, it almost always sends the 4 yo into a meltdown. This behavior I have just put my foot down on. I tell them NO COMPARING, no exceptions.

My son has improved a lot in this area, but I'm afraid I can't really tell you how because I think it's mainly through work they've done with him at school.

I actually used to be like this and made a conscious decision around age 12 to stop, because no one would play with me anymore.

I was like this as a kid. I don't know why. I accept now that I will lose at most everything and if I do win I feel a bit uncomfortable with the attention it garners.

I have a sibling who has this problem to the extreme -- complete meltdown at losing at anything. I really have no incite as to why this problem exists. Perhaps it's a change issue... if you try to win and you don't, it's a change/surprise with added negative self esteem.

It's also a big control issue. I always wanted to control what other people did during games. I still get upset if someone breaks the rules, and will make sure that they follow them completely, but otherwise I'm kind of inattentive to it all and have to be reminded of my turn over and over.

I hated losing and sucking at things. Now I have mellowed out and know I can't win at everything or be good at everything. I don't get upset if I don't win the raffle and I never bother with them anyway. I think why bother if I won't even win, I'd have to take risks and be lucky by wasting my money.

I know when I lose a game, it's not the end of the world and you are just playing for fun, there is no prize or consequence. Just play for the fun of it than trying to win. Even if I do suck at a game, don't worry about it and play for the fun of it.


I would also be annoyed if someone didn't follow the game rules, I just walk away from it by quitting. I don't need the anxiety.

my 6 yr old NT son is the one in our house who has this problem. he is VERY competitive, and does not handle losing gracefully. it usually results in whining and crying. my 4 yr old ASD son on the other hand is a very accepting loser, and he loses a LOT since he has a 6 yr old competitive brother. we very very rarely have issues because of our ASD son not winning.

with the poor loser, i try to reason through it with him. point out that in nearly all games, someone has to lose for someone else to win. talk about how it feels to lose and how it feels to win, how the other player must feel if they lose, what would it feel like to lose all the time. we also stress that other people dont want to play with someone who wins all the time or throws a tantrum when they lose, it makes it not much fun if you are the loser every time. talking through it helps him some, but he forgets it next time he loses. what i see in him is that losing to him is a personal failure and shakes his self confidence. we are working on confidence building with him and i hope it will help with the poor sportsmanship.

my oldest also has issues with losing, but for him its a responsibility response. when things go wrong in his life, he blames everyone but himself. for instance, saturday he was suppose to meet friends at the mall and he forgot, came running downstairs half an hour late yelling at ME for not telling him what time it was. hes 14, so he is responsible for watching the clock himself for his own social activities. same issue with games, he blames everyone or the computer for his losing. weve spent a decade trying to teach him that computers dont cheat, to no avail. he still constantly accuses his computer of cheating. for him the issue is a failure to take responsibility, a recurring theme in his life. we have found no way to counter this.

i would imagine for an ASD child, the problem with losing sometimes may have less to do with competitiveness and more to do with the "order of the universe". thinking along the lines of you play a game to win, and if you dont win, the game wasnt played right. like when my asd son has a picture in his mind of a lego structure, and when the end result doesnt look like the picture, chaos ensues. if thats the case, it would probably be beneficial to really stress that the purpose of games is to have fun, not to win, and to teach them about the role of luck and chance in gaming. try to change that picture in their mind from them winning a game to them having fun during the game. single player games may be helpful, things like solitaire card games, where there is no other player to win. and try to find games where there isnt one winner, but i cant think of any like that off the top of my head.

we have an opposite problem, complete disinterest in winning or comparing with others. this makes it difficult to play games or explain a tale of tortoise and a hare.
at the same time he is very critical when his drawing or other things do not come out as expected.

I've run into similar. We've had success with co-op games. Board games like 'Pandemic', where it's players versus environment, story-based games like RPGs, and even video games that allow co-op (team) play rather than player-versus-player help. It lets us 'compete' and introduces the idea that you don't always win the first try, but it removes the very personal 'one team wins but one loses' factor.