My 7 Year Old Does Not like to Participate in Games She Might Lose.

In general I would say that your daughter is very sensitive by nature and is easily hurt by others. It is wonderful to be sensitive (as it will help her to develop compassion and empathy) but it is very hard to overcome those first knocks and bruises that teach us that the world isn't all sunshine and flowers. She needs help in building her confidence and in overcoming failure so she can see that despite what the world has in store for her, she is still a valuable and important person.
I would start by helping her build some confidence. We should always be careful about negatively labeling our children (I have read that we may not need to build confidence in our children as much as we need to stop stealing it from them.) and always respond to their needs with gentleness, respect, compassion, and love. Think of the kind of person that your daughter is, how could you help her build her confidence? Is there something she enjoys but does not feel particularly good at that you could help her develop? If she is not much of an artist, but enjoys the process, get her some paints and an easel and praise all her work. Make her feel special for what she can do and praise all her attempts to do better. Have her try new ideas and projects and tell her how proud you are of her for trying. Give her some responsibilities around the house that show her that she can do many things.
The next step would be to help her overcome failure. Usually children know they have failed and don't need to be told. We should help them find out what went wrong and encourage them to try again. Praise the effort and help them realize that we won't always win the game, but if we don't try we will NEVER win. Help her to realize that even when she makes mistakes, her friends will still like her and she will still be a good person. We don't always have to win. Help her to use her compassion to see what others would feel like if she always won and they never got to win. Ask her how it feels to win? How many people won? Isn't it nice that they got to feel like a winner? Ask her how it feels when she loses, how many other people did not win? Does everyone who doesn't win feel bad? Would they be sad if you won everything and they never got to win? Everyone has some things they are good at and some things they need to improve on. Help her to understand that we have these different talents so that everyone has a chance to win at something. And remind her that she will never win, never get any better, and never have fun with her friends if she refuses to try. Then let her make the choice. Does she want to try and be happy even if someone else gets to win? Or does she want to wait and play another game? Eventually, with your encouragement, she will learn to accept that she can't always win.

M.! It is great you care about your kids so much. I was just like your little girl when I was little. I felt the games where someone loses were just 'unfair', and crude and mean. But over the years, thanks to a good mom who helped me see that "the winner doesn't always win in the end", I began to be comfortable with my sensetive philosophical nature. I became an artist and write stories for children. One of them that deals with that topic I made in semi-animated form here:
http://www.gomommygo.com/chick_story_w_sound.mov
If it doesn't show, let me know, it will help to know if my website works correctly.
She might enjoy it, too! The good guy DOES win in the end!
Best,
R. E (there are 2 of us out there with the same name - I'm the one with 7 kids!)
The main page of my website is at:
http://www.gomommygo.com/

Wow, she sounds JUST like me when I was a kid, and my son is the same way. We are both firstborn children. Birth order can play a role in some of that behavior. Firstborns can also lean more toward perfectionism and we can sometimes be harder on ourselves. Maybe find an activity for her to excel at where there is no win/lose, like art (a kids' art class is even better), a cooking class, things where she doesn't have to feel overwhelmed by competitiveness and she can blossom in her own right.

I don't think that it has anything to do with being competetive. I think she is afraid of looking stupid in front of others. You said that she likes to imaginary play, and isolates herself. Try playing games as a family when you lose jump up and down be silly, put on a cute show. Tell the others you are playing with, to do the same. Then later explain to her see the way we changed ourselfs from being losers to the life of the party. I believe everybody has lost to something. But when she is comfortable playing games with family invite another family over for game night and play games that she is good at. Make sure you do your little loser dance so that she understands it's ok to lose just change the negative to a possitive. There are a lot of fun easy card games. Spoons, Presidents & Scums. These are my family's favorites, if you want to know how to play just email me personally. They're personalities really come out. My 7 year old loves Presidents & Scums because he can usually beat the whole family. Which means he is usually the President, and mom & dad ends up the scum. The more you play as a family the more comfortable she will be, then invite grandparents, and then friends. Good Luck! Happy Mothers Day! J.

Is she the big sister who has to be an example? How important is perfection in your household?
What are your responses to your own failures or your husbands and how do you react to mistakes, your, hers, her sisters etc?
Do you laugh off or shrug off errors and disappointments?

These questions may bring you some answers.

Let her know its always OK. She may fear loss of face with her friends if her confidence is not so strong.
Or she may not have enough faith in her own worth.
Build up her spirit for her being who she is, not her results.

Tell her of times you learned by a mistake and play games where no one wins or it doesn't matter, to help show how its possible to have fun whether you win or not.
Best wishes!

M.,

Give your daughter some time and talk with her before she might encounter these occasions. Have her explore with you why it is upsetting to her. I myself am not a fan of competitive games and was a director of a children's program at our church. We played only non-competitive games and if there was a winner of an activity it was a group. However learning to lose gracefully is something that needs to be learned in life and better to learn it while young.

Talk with her about the more often she plays the better she will get and the more she will enjoy it. Talk about how much she enjoyed a game and that winning is just a fleeting accomplishment. I tell my children that a mistake is only a mistake if you don't learn from it. The same could be said here. She will always be a winner if she enjoys the game no matter what the outcome.

Hope this helps,

Evelyn

Sounds like a perfectionist! Your daughter is probably a gifted child. There are a ton of good things that come with being a perfectionist... to a certain extent. If it goes too far, which unfortunately, it seems to be going that way... it can lead to anxiety, depression, eating disorders etc.

When you said she marches to her own drum... that is another sign of giftedness. Is she in the GATE program at school? She should be tested.

Love your daughter unconditionially. She should not believe that your love or approval is measured by abilities or completed tasks. Perfectionism is thought to be genetic. I see a lot of it in children who are given a lot of responsibility and/or are the oldest sibling.

Good luck! Take time with her. She's not going to understand, "it's no big deal" because everything is a big deal. You seem really patient and in touch with her feelings - keep it up - you're doing the right things!

My 6 year old is the same way. Her school just started an intramural kickball program and she cried when they started to lose (in the middle of the game). We have caught her cheating several times at card games, Sorry, Uno, etc. at home.

We've been keeping at it and refuse to play with her, when she cheats. When her kickball team finally won, I asked if anyone on the other team was crying.

One thing that has helped, is that I have asked her who one the game played several weeks ago. This was my attempt to show her that it doesn't matter who won. We've emphasized that the whole goal is to have fun and make friends. Good luck. I hope others have good ideas, because I could use them too.

Hi M.,

I was like this -ugh. I have a son who gets it from me. With all 3 of ours, we started early with how it cannot be all about winning because someone always has to lose, it's part of winning. The focus we have done is on having fun. How if you are having fun and you win, hoorah! If you are having fun and you lose, you still had fun! I know when it hasn't worked out the way they want it, going over the old rule (fun) is done and if the still want to be upset or in a funk, then the conversation about how who is losing out now??? By not even playing/doing whatever, who is losing out?? They are. If they are okay with losing out, let them. With a willful child with extra curricular activities or playground time - you cannot make them. You must trust that they will work it out. If you have tried or do try and it doesn't help/work, let her work it out. Some children only learn by living. I know we wish we could overt pitfalls for them, but sometimes it isn't possible. I know I wouldn't listen when I was little, and I wish I had. Good luck & God Bless!

Hi M.,
Wow! I totally felt like you were describing my 7 year old daughter!

Here are some things that my husband and I did to help her confidence level.
1. We found an activity that she was passionate about.
She picked swimming and basketball, and loves to write short stories. We got her involved , and watched her excel!! We made it a point to get involved right along side her so that she knew how important she was to us, thus she had a ton of value as a person.
In swimming, because she enjoyed it so much, she picked up on the lessons quickly. I think we will eventually get her on a swim team. Basketball, our mild manored daughter became a Defense Monster on the court. Her writings, we encourage her to use her imagination, and she digs deep into her creativity and takes her time, and is very proud of the end result. I think I will get her a journal so that she can write about her summer to keep the creative juices flowing throughout the summer.
2. Women Role Models. Show and talk about successful women in history and today. Whether a First Lady, or athlete, or a play/theater with women. Show her all the ways that women are and can be an important part of society.
3. When playing games, stress how much fun we all had together, even though there has to be a winner and a loser. And when she was the loser, the importance of losing gracefully.

My theory is that God instills the competive nature within all us as a survival characteristic. A person needs to be competive in order to survive and to be successful. It is our jobs as parents to raise Gods children and mold this trait so that it can be a blessing to the child and also to the people around the child throughout thier life.

I wish you a Happy Mothers Day Michele! Because you are a great Mom to take the time to notice this in your daughter and want to help her through this milestone in her life.
Heidi

Hi M., Wow you just describe my son, he is now 21 and sevr since he was younger he hated to loose, he he was on a team and they started loosing, he would walk off, at 21 he still hates to loose, all's we cn do is teach our kids that some are good at one thing and others are good at something else, I came to the conclusion with my son, that this is something they have to figure out on their own, if you get some good advice please send it my way. J.

My son, who is now a teenager, was very much like that and can still be hard on himself sometimes, like me. I raised him as a single mom, him being an only child, for pretty much his first 9 years and the first 5 or 6 years his dad and I split the time with him. I do not know if he isolated himself but he always wanted to be the best, afraid of failure, etc.