Toning Down Your Overly Competitive Child

As parents, we would all love to see our children thriving in new and exciting activities, and honing creative skills that will set them apart from others. However, in some cases, children may become overly competitive, an act that can hurt your child in the long run.

There are many ways that you, as a parent, can help prevent your child from becoming overly competitive, and steps that you can take to help your child if he/she is already displaying overly competitive behavior.

One of the first steps is realizing that your child has a problem. One of the most recognizable clues is if your child is regularly making comments and exhibiting superiority over his/her friends. Consider the following scenario: your son’s friend Tommy is over to play after school and has brought over a new action figure that his father bought him. Your son makes the comment “oh, that’s nothing, my dad is going to buy me the entire darkness towers set.”

In a situation like this, you would want to encourage your child to use comments such as, “wow, you’re lucky, that’s a great toy,” rather than trying to outdo the other child.

Be sure to sit down with your child and discuss exactly what competitiveness is. Explain to your child how being competitive can hurt him or his friends. A classic pro’s and con’s list is a great way to quickly show your child why competitiveness can be negative. Discuss the difference between healthy competition and overly competitiveness. Give your child a few examples and ask him/her to tell you which scenarios display which behavior. If possible, use real instances you have observed between your child and one of their friends.

Prepare to be involved with your children, especially when potentially competitive activities will be taking place. Explain game rules carefully with your child and make sure they understand them. Many overly competitive children will claim that rules are “wrong” or “unfair”, or that other children “aren’t playing the game right”.

Explain to your child the benefits of winning and losing, and that there is not shame in either.

Not all cases of overly competitive children are the fault of the child. Parents greatly influence their children. Take a look at yourself. Ask yourself some of the following questions. Are you being a supportive parent? Are you putting too much pressure on your child to win or succeed? Are you punishing your child for coming in second? Sometimes parents not only push their children to hard to be better, sometimes they dote too much on their children. It is very easy for a proud parent to regularly make statements about their children such as, “Bethany is the greatest runner in our whole family, none of those other kids will be able to beat her at the meet.” Comments such as this may not only put pressure on your child to succeed, but they may also make them feel like they are exceptionally superior to their peers.

It is very important that we monitor not only our children’s behavior, but our own. One last tip is that if you are continually having trouble with your competitive child, you may remove your child from activities that encourage competitiveness.

Always remember to parent patiently and lovingly.