When children are four or five years old, they often appear to be unable to lose and blurt out: "I don't want to play anymore", "this is not fun at all", and so on. Mom and dad will of course feel embarrassed, especially if it's at a family gathering. Please be more patient, it's not that your child is bad-tempered or has a poor frustration tolerance, it's that he or she is still in the learning stage.
When children turn four years old, they begin to have an understanding of rules, what is right and what is wrong. At this point, children's "right and wrong" is a 100 percent dichotomy, either all right or all wrong. Children are not yet able to distinguish the degree of seriousness, so as long as a small mistake, they feel that they can not do anything right, which leads to an emotional breakdown. Therefore, parents should not put out the fire with a gasoline can and take the opportunity to count the child's mistakes, that really does not help at all. Please first help children to calm down, the most commonly used way is "we are the same group", one to let the game can continue, the second to let the child feel safe. Wait until the game is complete, and then reason with your child in private!
Help your child learn to accept winning and losing
So, there is no need to rush to blame your child, nor to ask him or her to face frustration and find a way to overcome it on his or her own. Instead, assist your child in three ways.
1. develop self-confidence
We often mistake a child's fear of losing as poor frustration tolerance, so our intuition is to give children more experience with failure. The result is that instead of making your child's frustration tolerance better, he or she will become more afraid of failure. To practice frustration tolerance before, you need to develop your child's self-confidence, when the child thinks he or she is very good, at this time encountered a small failure, will have resistance. Let children know clearly, where they are better than others, of course, also more able to fight the anxiety caused by failure.
2. Learn to take turns
It's hard to lose, but why would we want to continue to be in such a situation, the choice to leave is the clearest decision. The fact is that winning and losing is a reciprocal relationships. Imagine playing poker with a superb hand that you are sure to win, and then the person you are playing with suddenly backs out of the game, can you win? Therefore, when we are willing to temporarily endure the uncomfortable feeling of losing so that others can get the joy of winning, the next time when I want to win, it will be the turn of others' need to endure. Therefore, children must first learn to take turns in order to control their fear of facing losing.
3. Develop frustration tolerance
From the age of five, when "self-confidence" and "turn-taking concept" have matured, you can develop the child's frustration tolerance. One tip to remember at this point is to choose a game that involves three or more people, and let your child try to be either first or second, not last in any case. Let the child first familiar with losing, but not last place, and gradually develop frustration acceptance. When the child can control his or her emotions, only then can the real "rules game" begin, so that the child can learn to really win or lose.
However, remember that if you are playing a new game, please treat it as practice the first time so that your child can have a successful experience so and he or she will be more willing to try new games.
"Fear of losing" is not a child's temper tantrum, but a child who is beginning to care about his or her performance, but is not yet able to control his or her emotions. What children need is not reproach, but rather the patient company of parents, and more practice with their children.