Winning and perfectionism

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My son is 9 years old, and yes, he's young...but he is the kind of kid that has to win everything. He competes all the time, with everything. Academically, physically, mentally....everything and he has to win and be perfect. He has been in social skills therapy for over 2 years, he gets social skills worked into his school curriculum (he goes to private school specifically for these kids) and I work on them at home, all places focus quite often on winning. There are days when he melts down, gets angry or cheats (which is fine as long as you win), and there are days when he will congratulate me for winning and he shakes my hand. He knows what being a good and bad sport is, and he tries really hard to be a good sport when he's not first, fastest, biggest etc.

When talking with the director of his school about this, she said that he is so black and white and that makes it harder. You win or lose, you're right or wrong, you're good or bad and he see's no grey area. My son told me one day that if he plays 10 games of cards, and wins 9 of them he loses ALL of them. The fact that he won most of the games means nothing once he has lost. He see's all 10 games as one event.

With a child that is this black and white, does anyone have ANY advice as to how to teach him that losing and making mistakes are part of learning, and you can't be perfect all the time? I can work around mistakes, and erasing an answer and that kind of stuff, but he's really into baseball and he does really well and I want to put him in little league because he's too old for the teams that don't keep score. I told him that he is going to play and he will be struck out, tagged out and his team will lose games and I asked him if he could handle that. He said "I don't know, we'll have to see". (he's so cute) I put him in baseball classes with professional players hoping that he can get some skills so he isn't the worst kid on the team, but when he doesn't do something perfectly he gets mad, throws his hat, etc....but he says he wants to play. I'm not forcing this on him.

I just want this to go as easy for him as possible, for him, and I am totally out of ideas as to how to give him the insight into the learning process and how it works. If anyone has any ideas or insights I would love to hear them. I have been working on this for so long, several years, and I have totally run out of ideas. I don't want to change him, I just want him to enjoy himself and recognize when he is good, or improving, or getting something, and to understand that on occasion, you throw a bad throw and that's OK. I don't want him to feel stupid and inadequate, and that is how he often feels when in fact he's very bright and very coordinated.

I used to be just like this. It took me another 10 years to accept failure. You can't teach him that success means nothing without failure, he is going to have to learn that on his own. It's one of those lessons that has to be learned over a period of time, or else it doesn't sink in properly. I wish I knew of a quick fix, but I don't. There obviously is a reason why he is afraid to fail, and I can't tell you what that is. He's your kid. What happens when he fails?

He usually gets mad when he fails. He acts that out in some way. He used to be mean and try to hurt the winner physically or with words, but we work all the time on that and he's getting better with age. He gets mad if he writes a wrong answer on his homework. He slams his fist, gets defiant and won't listen, but I can deal with that. My concern is that he gets so down on himself. To him, losing is bad and wrong, and there is no grey. He can't do it right because he's stupid. This is what he tells himself. So if he's with other people he get embarassed on top of that. It's hard for him, but he loves to play, and baseball is a good sport for him. I want him to understand that you have to fail to learn, you need to figure out what doesn't work until you figure out what does just like scientists do. It has nothing to do with how smart you are. Just like you said, success means nothing without failure.

I tell myself to give it time, like I said, he is young, but I worry about him. He has enough to deal with from regular life than to have to add something he doesn't have to worry about all on his own.

It's nice to hear you say "used to be".