Aspergers and HFA Children and Poor Sportsmanship

"My boy (high functioning) hates to share - and even worse - hates to lose. He takes playing games too seriously, and takes losing too personally. How can I help him be a better team player? Also, what games might be a better fit for him?"

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Comments

Anonymous said…
This describes my daughter. Any game she doesn't win ends in tears, actually most everything ends in tears.
August 1, 2012 at 9:17 AM
Anonymous said…
family board games so you can model winning and losing and have discussions and reward his/her grateful win and lose. start with just family (you - if it is appropriate) at first and there may be an opportunity to "model" an inappropriate win or lose with gross exaggerations followed by more social stories. Take it outside to a basketball court for some 1:1 and other type activities that do not involve uncontrollable others and outcomes until child is ready. Also watch the olympics and use social stories to highlight the sportsmanship modeled there. good luck
August 1, 2012 at 12:03 PM
Anonymous said…
my son's 2nd grade teacher set up some of her compassionate and patient students to help my son - but it kinda backfired when another 2nd grade class group of kids didn't know the "modified" rules played with my son. the other kids came real close to fighting in their efforts to stick up for my son. teaching winning and losing involved the school psychiatrist getting involved and my son getting to choose a classmate to come in and play board games - in addition to the home versions. it takes multi interventions sometimes.
August 1, 2012 at 12:03 PM
Anonymous said…
Honestly, Webkinz helped my daughter so much with not taking it personally when she lost a game. Short, frequent games that are quickly decided, and then quickly moved on from helped her put things in perspective.
August 1, 2012 at 12:03 PM
Anonymous said…
try karate..builds confidence ..turn taking and doesnt have to be competitive, helped my son no end.. my son also never understood or will understand team games like football..structured lessons helped him more, also with the sharing thing..try giving him the choice of what toys he feels able to share..and put the rest up ..i found looking at it from a adult perspective that if a friend of mine came round and started playing with my tv or going through my stuff and wearing my make up i would get upset...and that is how my son saw these kids who came to his house and started using his stuff...lol..he also had a stuffed lizard bean toy that no one could touch and took it evrywhere ..even at school.
August 1, 2012 at 3:57 PM
Anonymous said…
sports day was a nightmare in jnrs..and often ended up in a punch up if somebody laughed at him not winning ..honestly i have the photos to prove it!..so we ended up advoiding sports day and instead took the day off and went swimming..:D
August 1, 2012 at 3:58 PM
Anonymous said…
family games were a joke when my aspie was younger. I think it's because they think so black & white/all or nothing. Losing meant LOSING everything. sooo.... (yep, I'm gonna catch it for this but it worked) we introduced him to poker. (h
e's a math/numbers whiz). The games moved fast so he didn't have time to react to losing a game before he would be playing again. We played fair, made sure he knew that he would NOT get his money back if he lost it (we played with pennies and nickles only), and promised we would play again another day if he did NOT throw any fits. He may have ended with less money than he started with, but he knew the consequence of GOOD SPORTSMANSHIP would yield a chance to win again. He also had a little more control over the game than a "roll of the dice". He could chose which version we played when he was the dealer. He could choose if or how much he wanted to bet... I don't know but I think that made a bit of a difference than so many board games that rely on luck alone. Eventually he calmed down and used good sportsmanship in other games and we have no problems at all now. I'm sure you could modify this approach, use marbles or toothpicks and any fast moving game, not necessarily poker or cards. We didn't really give it much thought, he just asked to play one day, we were desperate and willing to try anything, and we were amazed at the difference it made. OF COURSE we went to great lengths to explain to him that we were playing for fun and only with the money we had set aside for the game and that getting carried away with gambling can be very dangerous.
9 hours ago · Like
August 2, 2012 at 7:16 AM
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