Not Winning Games

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Fitzi
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08 Dec 2014, 12:34 pm

cakedashdash wrote:

I love that you can teach your son that you don't have to be coordinated to be an artist
I really hope game playing works out for you and your family
You sound like you have an amazing family

I come from a long line of artists
I always doodled things still do but when I became an adult
I realized I was an artist as well
I used publish writing but I mostly do art
I hand draw like a 4 to 7 year old but do better with a mouse

Awww, thanks

. You sound amazing too. Yes, there are so many ways to be an artist. I am trying to help my 9 year old also realize that you don't have to be good at spelling, or writing letters to be good at creating good writing. That's coming a little more slowly.

Fitzi
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08 Dec 2014, 1:06 pm

ASDMommyASDKid wrote:

He gets upset even when there is plenty of game left, and we are trying to build tolerance.

Yep. Same issue here. If he even suspects that he may not win he gets very upset.

We try not to play any game that would be too frustrating for him, because he needs to feel very comfortable with the skills required.

ASDMommyASDKid
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08 Dec 2014, 8:49 pm

eikonabridge wrote:

ASDMommyASDKid wrote:

While he has empathy, he does not have ToM, and is not "selfless" enough to let someone win on that basis, though if he ever played with someone substantially younger who he was sure he could beat, he might. I don't think he likes the notion of not being able to win, more than he needs the win itself, if that makes sense.

These children are visual. I do not consider a message as conveyed to them until they have seen the message visually with their eyes. Have you tried to draw a picture (stick figures) for him? Draw a happy face of him winning, and sad faces for the other players. Perhaps make several rectangles, showing the situation in each turn in a separate rectangle. And let him know that turn after turn Joe or Jane is sad again and again. Then ask him what can be done. If necessary glue the sheet of paper on the bedroom's wall. That's what we do sometimes with our son, for important messages. I glued one picture in the bathroom so to remind him that he shouldn't dangle from the towel bar. I glued another one in the bedroom to remind him that germs can cause him to be sick. I also find bedtime picture-aided talking reduces future tantrums. He loves the drawings and does try his best to follow the instructions. He no longer dangles from the towel bar. Picture-aided talking brings you much closer to their inner world. Last week my son (5 years old) finally started to draw pictures himself on the magnetic drawing board. He drew an elevator with people inside. To me, he has fully completed his outer visual feedback loop, and he basically has "graduated" in my opinion. I have pretty much solved all the tantrum problems of my children through picture-aided talking. Try it, if you haven't. My daughter is almost 7 years old, now, and has been fully verbal for quite sometimes, now. But she would still bring the magnetic board to me to ask me to draw pictures. I don't know about other parents, but in my case, I get very close to my children through pictures. I talk to them through their eyes, not through their ears. And they seem to appreciate it very much.

My son is face-blind and actually had difficulty processing pictures, stick-figures or otherwise. I think this processing issue is related to the face-blindness. (Luckily) He is also hyperlexic, so notes with actual words work best for us. Believe me, it is harder for him to decipher and respond to pictures. Just one of his quirks, and interpreting pictures is something we work on separately, but not to convey quick information.

We don't really run into winning as a problem, although it would not surprise me if it were to pop up as one. It is the losing. He is getting better at sensing the impending meltdown, and will quit the game due to it, which we are OK with b/c I would rather he notice and act on mood changes than worry about him quitting. He is playing with us, not other kids, so it doesn't matter from that perspective. My husband and I praise him for recognizing what he has to do, and we just keep playing to model the preferred behavior.

Fitzi
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08 Dec 2014, 9:09 pm

ASDMommyASDKid wrote:

[

He is getting better at sensing the impending meltdown, and will quit the game due to it, which we are OK with b/c I would rather he notice and act on mood changes than worry about him quitting. He is playing with us, not other kids, so it doesn't matter from that perspective. My husband and I praise him for recognizing what he has to do, and we just keep playing to model the preferred behavior.

I need to work on helping my son recognize this. We try to point out when we sense a meltdown, but he will insist he is fine and then it is too late. He does do this with other kids too. With playground games, he will also interpret not being first, being "it" in tag, etc. as unfair and mean. He feels the other kids are picking on him a lot. There are a lot of kids picking on him, actually, but not usually the ones who will include him in their game of tag. He does play games at school with other kids during speech therapy and social counseling, but almost always wins against the kids he is playing with.

InThisTogether
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08 Dec 2014, 9:24 pm

eikonabridge wrote:

InThisTogether wrote:

eikonabridge wrote:

They care about other people. Much more so than neurotypical children.

Well. That flies in the face of my experience, especially when speaking in such general terms.

There is a matter of nature vs. nurture as well. But in general terms, there has been study on these issues. See for instance: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18255038

I do not understand how the abstract you directed me to is related to selflessness in autistics. Did you direct me to the wrong abstract?

It sounds to me like you are implying it is the "nature" of autistics to be selfless, and if they are not, then it is a "nurture" issue. Are you accusing me of "nurturing" my daughter to be selfish? If so, shame on you. Seriously. I don't think anyone could have put more time and effort into trying to help their kid overcome wiring that is skewed toward selfish perspectives.

I really hope I am misunderstanding.

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Fitzi
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08 Dec 2014, 9:32 pm

InThisTogether wrote:

eikonabridge wrote:

InThisTogether wrote:

eikonabridge wrote:

They care about other people. Much more so than neurotypical children.

Well. That flies in the face of my experience, especially when speaking in such general terms.

There is a matter of nature vs. nurture as well. But in general terms, there has been study on these issues. See for instance: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18255038

I read it that way too. But, chose not to engage it as I know that we are also not nurturing my son to be selfish or very competitive. I also think perhaps selfish is not quite the right word, maybe. More, self centered. Or, at least, it does not seem to be a conscious choice he is making to be selfish (sometimes it is, but I don't think during games). It's more that he is only focussed on his feelings and his needs. He, I doubt, even gets to the point consciously where he would think: "I know my actions/ want for this thing/ experience will make so and so lack or feel bad- but I'm going to do it anyway..." He just is feeling and reacting and is not shifting his focus on anything else at that moment.

ASDMommyASDKid
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08 Dec 2014, 10:14 pm

Fitzi wrote:

InThisTogether wrote:

eikonabridge wrote:

InThisTogether wrote:

eikonabridge wrote:

They care about other people. Much more so than neurotypical children.

Well. That flies in the face of my experience, especially when speaking in such general terms.

There is a matter of nature vs. nurture as well. But in general terms, there has been study on these issues. See for instance: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18255038

I did not understand the relevance of the abstract, either.

I know that there is a difference between affective and demonstrative empathy, and I assumed that the poster meant that aspies can be overly emotionally sensitive, regardless of whether or not that is readily apparent to others.

I don't think they have a good social cognitive sense of when it ought to apply. I also don't think a child at the cusp of a meltdown (AS or not) is apt to be empathetic either. I would not generalize and say most AS kids possess more empathy than most NT kids. it also is often not about the same things, because the same things may not make them upset.

I didn't read anything into the nature vs. nature thing b/c I did not take it literally and I just took nurture to mean environmental factors in general. Being around mean kids all day can make a person unempathetic, too.

Honestly, I am an adult and when I see mean bullies, i don't empathize with them, either. So maybe what was meant was the kindness (or lack of same) of those around us, affects empathy. That would make sense to me. Even NT kids can be poor sports/bad losers and AS kids could absorb those things.

Perhaps the poster will clarify.

cakedashdash
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08 Dec 2014, 11:56 pm

Fitzi
Thanks :-) very kind of you to say.
I have issues with grammar due to my learning disability.
Took 7 years to edit one of my novels so I stick with art right now.

spinningpixie
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09 Dec 2014, 10:26 am

my youngest use to have a terrible time with losing. strong emotions just overwhelm him. so strong disappointment combined with the excitement from the game could trigger a meltdown. he's better now at 12 years. he can usually realize when he's headed towards a meltdown. we did various things when it was at it's worse. i use to have the kids "set" my level of play like a video game. they could have me play "easy", "medium", "hard", or "challenging". this seemed to help. i also would remind him to breathe, talk in a quieter voice, etc. things that helped to keep him calm. sometimes i would have him help me make a snack during a game to give him time to calm down. it seemed to help to take breaks for snacks, etc. before the emotions got too strong. so i would have to notice little things - like his breathing increasing, or holding his breath, or bouncing in his chair. these were indicators for him that his emotions were escalating. these were often happy or excited emotions but they could still overwhelm him.

setai
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09 Dec 2014, 12:00 pm

When my son was 4 he had trouble not winning. We implemented a rule where everyone wins, 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. It seemed to help and now at 5 he doesn't seem to care who wins and is just happy for whomever wins. I think everyone being winners message helped. Your 9 yr could still play and only think about 1st place.

Fitzi
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09 Dec 2014, 10:34 pm

spinningpixie wrote:

The snack seems like an awesome idea. I will try that, thanks.

setai, we do try that, it definitely takes the edge off. Thanks.

ASDMommyASDKid
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10 Dec 2014, 4:44 am

Fitzi wrote:

spinningpixie wrote:

The snack seems like an awesome idea. I will try that, thanks.

setai, we do try that, it definitely takes the edge off. Thanks.

I really wish I did a better job at noticing and being able to articulate those signs of impending fussdom. It is like I can tell but I can't explain why at the time. The best I can do is tell him I notice him getting upset.

Comp_Geek_573
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10 Dec 2014, 9:54 pm

I was a pretty sore loser when I was a small child. I think it had to do with not "doing what I'm supposed to do" and being less lovable/worthy if I lost. Never mind that if two players are equally skilled, each should win only about half the time!

Nowadays I can take most any loss against a person in stride, but sometimes feel very upset if I do "horribly" compared to my skill level at a video game. Take Mario Kart Wii for instance: it had a "VS Rating" that maxes at 9999 and I generally ran mine in the low-mid 9000's. When it dropped below 9000, I would get very upset and oftentimes play for hours to get it back up above some "cutoff" in my mind (usually 9000, but sometimes 9500 if I started the session higher than that.)

And the worst part? I usually do worse when I'm upset!! This effect is the greatest with golf - I can easily have the "wheels come off" if I duff two or three shots in a row and take so many strokes that I don't want to keep score anymore. Fortunately, I'm not that great at golf overall so I'm happy to get just one par in 9 holes. It would be a much bigger problem if I could actually have stretches of holes where I shoot bogey golf (1 over par on average) or better...

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Kawena
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12 Dec 2014, 10:50 pm

I really wish I could get my 12yo to engage in a game. The only one he'll play is a Blokus type game that he has an excellent chance of winning (if he doesn't, he wants to play over and over again, analyzing every move). He won't play any game he might have decent odds of losing. If he did, we at least could have a chance of helping him learn to be a gracious loser. But he just won't engage.

I'm not sure about relevance of that abstract either. While I don't consider my son selfish, I definitely wouldn't consider him selfless either. He is somewhat self-centered in that he can't see the perspective of others/understand their intent (ToM) very easily, but he can be generous and thoughtful when it comes to his family. He's got self-control the rest of us only dream of

Fitzi
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12 Dec 2014, 11:00 pm

Kawena wrote:

I'm not sure about relevance of that abstract either. While I don't consider my son selfish, I definitely wouldn't consider him selfless either. He is somewhat self-centered in that he can't see the perspective of others/understand their intent (ToM) very easily, but he can be generous and thoughtful when it comes to his family.

^^Yes. My son surprised me this evening by telling me he would like me to get him some colored clay so he can make a special necklace for his brother for Christmas. I doubt my other son (not ASD) has thought about this at all.

Also, he asked for Blokus for Christmas

Kawena
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12 Dec 2014, 11:08 pm

Quote:

That's so sweet! My son has come up with some great ideas and made some neat things for his siblings. I love that generous spirit! And your son will probably love Blokus, if he's visual and likes puzzles. Great gift!

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