Need to be the 'best'

[Panders]

Sorry Beau, I can see why you feel what I said wasn't particularly helpful about some parenting styles and I apologise to you and all.

[Upsy Daisy]

I think what this little one needs is help with his emotional resilience.

He needs to learn to understand and manage the emotions he experiences when he doesn't win the game, get the best place, climb the highest, etc. He needs to experience his own intrinsic rewards from simply enjoying an experience and this is being drowned out at the moment by his drive to win approval from others.

His response to the spider incident makes me think that even small negative experiences are having a huge emotional impact on him and he is having trouble working through them and putting them behind him.

Like Beau, I've seen this in my daughters with AS. They work incredibly hard to do the right thing at school and when, as is inevitable, they make a misjudgement and elicit even very mild disapproval, their world falls apart. They have both been really knocked for six by teachers expressing mild disapproval in ways that would have been water off a duck's back to most other children to the point where one seemingly fairly innocuous comment can disrupt their learning for days.

My younger daughter was devastated to have missed a distinction in her drama exam last year by one mark. She couldn't see it as marvellous that she was close to a distinction. She just focused on what she'd done wrong to miss that one mark. It made her unhappy and worried for more than a week.

We have had to work hard to talk through different aspects of not being the best and not always getting everything right. We've labelled the emotions of disappointment and acknowledged that they don't feel nice.

We've imagined ways we could manage those emotions appropriately, what we could say, who we could say it to, how else we could make ourselves feel better, whether we should hold them inside forever, tell the people around us how we feel right now or perhaps later on when we feel safer.

We've talked about how we learn from our negative experiences so that we can do better in the future.

We've thought about how the adult expressing the disapproval won't dislike us forever because of one small transgression and they will probably forget about it within minutes, even if we remember for a long time.

We've talked about how the others might feel if one person was always the first or the best and how people might not want to play a game if they knew they could never win.

We've played games that my younger daughter hasn't won, warned her about how she might feel just before it happens and then talked about the emotions she is experiencing so that she understands them better when it's actually happening. This makes the experience of losing a game a more constructive, positive learning activity. We have also stopped part way through a game and thought about what we are enjoying about the activity and realised that this won't be taken away or changed by who wins at the end.

You also might find that working to help him label his emotions, positive and negative, at different times in the session, not just when he's feeling competitive, will help him.

Could you revisit the spider experience with him and explain that you understand that he might not have thought about what it was like to be the spider, that you know he's a very kind person and won't squash spiders any more and that what happened can be forgotten now? Then maybe he will understand that your view of him is no longer coloured by this one small mistake.

I know you'll always be gentle, supportive and kind in how you help him through this because you are that sort of practitioner :1b

[Beau]

Sorry Beau, I can see why you feel what I said wasn't particularly helpful about some parenting styles and I apologise to you and all.

Sorry, I hope I didn't seem harsh but it struck a nerve for me. Since my daughter has been diagnosed my whole perception of people's behaviour has shifted.

 

As always Upsy Daisy has explained everything fantastically!

[Guest sn0wdr0p]

Beau,

I see the same behaviour with my 13 year old son. He is on the autistic spectrum and has ADHD. He is desperate to always be best to the point of obsession. When he was 10 he desperately wanted to go to circus school and learn to do tricks on a unicycle so he could take it to school one day and show the headmaster that he could do something no one else in the school could do - bless him he was so desperate to find something he could excel in. He could not take part in team sports as he became frustrated if others let his team down and was too busy trying to be the best to include others. Other parents thought he was a show off and he struggled with friendships and slowly his invitations to parties etc. stopped. It was pretty heartbreaking for all of us. However we knew we had to find a way to still have activities outside the home and he has found an outlet in boxing. I personally hate the sport and can't bear to watch someone being hurt especially so my son but he LOVES it. Yes, to the point of obsession, and goes four times a week. Fortunately he is very very good at it and has a fantastic coach who has the measure of him. He has made friends with the other boys and young men who are pretty tolerent of him. He is travelling to Denmark next year as part of an ABA team. He is part of a team but only responsible for his sporting outcome with no one else to blame but himself.

He does make us laugh though - he has to be the best at skipping despite all the whip marks he gets on his arms and recently started to jog to the gym an hour earlier than his lessons started and it tooks us a few weeks to realise (when we heard him talking to our youngest) that a girls boxercise class has started before his and the girls were 'really fit'. Oh the joys of a teenage son! It's going to be a rocky ride.

[sunnyday]

 

 

As for losing at games - this is a brilliant way of making sure that some of our young charges learn the gentle art of losing gracefully - of course we must sell the argument that we are not setting them up to fail - rather we are empowering them with the skills to be resilient!! Maybe this can be an opening for you in your "chats" with mum Sunnyday

Thanks so much Sue - I was interested to see how he is with games - we play plenty - but that's one of the 'tasks' that falls to my deputy - I asked her about how he is when playing and then set up a game and watched for myself.......

It was exactly how she described (of course) and he said repeatedly throughout the game "I'm winning" or "I'm going to win".........my deputy just answered 'quietly' "well we don't know who is going to win, until the end of the game"..........so.........he didn't win but more interestingly he really wasn't 'bothered' - I take that as being a positive :1b

[sunnyday]

 

I see something similar in my husband who, like your little boy, is always out to be the best. I have spoken to him in the past about it and he actually doesn't like that side of his personality and gets very annoyed with himself. Does it help? No, he still feels compelled to be the best. The only way he had been able to describe it is that it's almost like a physical pain to not be the best.

 

Now, whatever is going on with your little boy may not be the same as this but please consider the possibility that it's not something he can easily control or change and that the distress is not necessarily the result of an indulged child.

Thank you so much Beau - I was so interested to read your well considered post.

I completely agree - I don't believe that 'poor parenting' is to blame in this little boys case - as previously mentioned he is one of four and mum was at great pains to assure me that he gets "told off" at home (I really need to get her to understand that he is not being 'told off' at pre-school).........

We have all, I imagine, worked with children who are clearly over indulged - but that is not him at all........

I am concerned that this 'need' to be the 'best' has only just 'developed' and am not sure what to make of that - which was 'where I came in really' - I want to support him through this and help him 'overcome' this and begin to understand (but gently, gently) that he won't always be 'the best'

[sunnyday]

I think what this little one needs is help with his emotional resilience.

 

He needs to learn to understand and manage the emotions he experiences when he doesn't win the game, get the best place, climb the highest, etc. He needs to experience his own intrinsic rewards from simply enjoying an experience and this is being drowned out at the moment by his drive to win approval from others.

 

His response to the spider incident makes me think that even small negative experiences are having a huge emotional impact on him and he is having trouble working through them and putting them behind him.

 

Like Beau, I've seen this in my daughters with AS. They work incredibly hard to do the right thing at school and when, as is inevitable, they make a misjudgement and elicit even very mild disapproval, their world falls apart. They have both been really knocked for six by teachers expressing mild disapproval in ways that would have been water off a duck's back to most other children to the point where one seemingly fairly innocuous comment can disrupt their learning for days.

My younger daughter was devastated to have missed a distinction in her drama exam last year by one mark. She couldn't see it as marvellous that she was close to a distinction. She just focused on what she'd done wrong to miss that one mark. It made her unhappy and worried for more than a week.

We have had to work hard to talk through different aspects of not being the best and not always getting everything right. We've labelled the emotions of disappointment and acknowledged that they don't feel nice.

We've imagined ways we could manage those emotions appropriately, what we could say, who we could say it to, how else we could make ourselves feel better, whether we should hold them inside forever, tell the people around us how we feel right now or perhaps later on when we feel safer.

We've talked about how we learn from our negative experiences so that we can do better in the future.

We've thought about how the adult expressing the disapproval won't dislike us forever because of one small transgression and they will probably forget about it within minutes, even if we remember for a long time.

 

We've talked about how the others might feel if one person was always the first or the best and how people might not want to play a game if they knew they could never win.

We've played games that my younger daughter hasn't won, warned her about how she might feel just before it happens and then talked about the emotions she is experiencing so that she understands them better when it's actually happening. This makes the experience of losing a game a more constructive, positive learning activity. We have also stopped part way through a game and thought about what we are enjoying about the activity and realised that this won't be taken away or changed by who wins at the end.

You also might find that working to help him label his emotions, positive and negative, at different times in the session, not just when he's feeling competitive, will help him.

Could you revisit the spider experience with him and explain that you understand that he might not have thought about what it was like to be the spider, that you know he's a very kind person and won't squash spiders any more and that what happened can be forgotten now? Then maybe he will understand that your view of him is no longer coloured by this one small mistake.

I know you'll always be gentle, supportive and kind in how you help him through this because you are that sort of practitioner :1b

Upsy - I am in your debt - thank you so much for your response - it has given me lots to think about

I told the story of the 'spider incident' for several reasons - not least because I know that I completely over reacted and I have regretted that ever since.........killing of spiders, bugs or whatever is a personal massive dislike of mine - but that can not justify making him feel so bad about it..........I have told him so many times since that I am very, very pleased that he doesn't kill spiders anymore, and that I know that he didn't really think about what he was doing, and that I know he is such a good thinker usually, and that he is very kind etc etc - you get the picture........

I hope he knows that I really 'value' him......

Another reason was to 'demonstrate' how much 'my opinion' seems to mean to him - I am concerned that he wants to be 'my best' - this could explain why 'Ben' getting a 'wow' for his singing bothered him so much........it had followed him getting a 'wow' for his fantastic singing one day and then the next day I showed my 'disapproval' however quietly when I asked him to 'slow down'........

Goodness this is feeling very complicated and I hope I'm not just 'over thinking' things......

[sunnyday]

Beau,

I see the same behaviour with my 13 year old son. He is on the autistic spectrum and has ADHD. He is desperate to always be best to the point of obsession. When he was 10 he desperately wanted to go to circus school and learn to do tricks on a unicycle so he could take it to school one day and show the headmaster that he could do something no one else in the school could do - bless him he was so desperate to find something he could excel in. He could not take part in team sports as he became frustrated if others let his team down and was too busy trying to be the best to include others. Other parents thought he was a show off and he struggled with friendships and slowly his invitations to parties etc. stopped. It was pretty heartbreaking for all of us. However we knew we had to find a way to still have activities outside the home and he has found an outlet in boxing. I personally hate the sport and can't bear to watch someone being hurt especially so my son but he LOVES it. Yes, to the point of obsession, and goes four times a week. Fortunately he is very very good at it and has a fantastic coach who has the measure of him. He has made friends with the other boys and young men who are pretty tolerent of him. He is travelling to Denmark next year as part of an ABA team. He is part of a team but only responsible for his sporting outcome with no one else to blame but himself.

He does make us laugh though - he has to be the best at skipping despite all the whip marks he gets on his arms and recently started to jog to the gym an hour earlier than his lessons started and it tooks us a few weeks to realise (when we heard him talking to our youngest) that a girls boxercise class has started before his and the girls were 'really fit'. Oh the joys of a teenage son! It's going to be a rocky ride.

Thank you Sn0wdr0p and I'm so pleased that your son has 'found' Boxing (like you I think it's a horrible sport - but hey what do we know! )

[sunnyday]

I have been feeling quite cross with myself about the 'chair' business - to be honest before he started to 'develop' the other 'I need to be the best' behaviours I didn't see my supporting this as an issue - but I do take narnia's point about this......

So today I was quietly determined that he wouldn't get 'that chair' but I wanted it to be his choice.......so I directed his 'best buddy' to a chair as I set them out and sure enough he chose to sit next to him - I call that a 'success' - no 'confrontation' he chose a different 'position' and he discovered that it was actually 'fine' to sit somewhere else! :1b

[sunnyday]

Sorry Beau, I can see why you feel what I said wasn't particularly helpful about some parenting styles and I apologise to you and all.

Dear Panders - please never feel the need to apologise to me - as you know I always value your opinion - in some 'cases' I have little doubt that some 'parenting styles' would/could lead to such behaviours - but I am pretty sure this is not so for my little boy.....

[EChanana]

I don't know if you have come across the research from a psychologist called Carol Dweck - she studied motivation and success. I first came across her research when I went on a Gifted and Talented course. She introduced the idea of people having either a 'fixed mindset' or a 'growth mindset'. From her website:

"In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort. In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. Virtually all great people have had these qualities."

Carol Dweck found that many Gifted and Talented children have gone through life finding things easy and this has reinforced the idea that they are clever, resulting in a fixed mindset. She also found that once these children experience 'failure' or make a mistake they can't cope because they view it to mean that they are no longer clever or the best.

What I found most interesting is that she also found that by changing the way we speak to children we can help them develop a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset. Through her experiments she found that when she praised children by telling them 'You did well on the test you must be very clever', they chose to do another easy test - fixed mindset. When she praised children by telling them 'You did well on the test you must have tried hard', they chose to do a harder test - growth mindset.

Her work links really well with the Characteristics of Effective Learning and might help you when supporting children who always need to be right or the best. Her work is also great to share with pushy parents too as they are often people who will look up and listen to research like this. After I went on the course that talked about Carol Dweck's research it changed the way I interacted with all children, not just the Gifted and Talented, and I noticed the difference in their attitudes almost immediately. You can find video clips of her discussing her research on YouTube or she also has a book out called 'Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential'.

[sunnyday]

Thank you very much - I will do some research :1b

Have had a really good discussion with 'mum' today (following some interesting comments from this young man this morning) - she thinks that he is possibly feeling a little 'left out' at home - a family of four and apparently he is the least 'demanding') her theory is....and I think she might be right........that he is seeking some sort of reassurance from me

He is such a lovely, bright, capable little boy and I am extremely fond of him and want to do 'my absolute best' for him! :1b

[Guest sn0wdr0p]

EChanana,

How very interesting. I had never heard of this research before. A little trawl of Amazon is planned for tonight. Thank you.