Son’s sportsmanlike outbursts troubling

A reader recently presented the following problem. Dear Dr. LeCrone: Our son is an excellent tennis player but he seems to have a terrible problem dealing with the occasional loses that he experiences. He has broken and thrown his racket numerous times. On other occasions he has lost his temper at the end of the match and yelled obscenities at his opponent and the line judges. He even won’t speak to anyone including his girlfriend for several days after a loss. He doesn’t exhibit this behavior in any other situations including school, social relationships or other competitive sports. Can you make any helpful suggestions that we might pass on to him?

Dear Reader:

• Has your son picked up some bad habits of modeling after other athletes who exhibit unsportsmanlike conduct when losing? Occasionally, I have seen young athletes who actually admire the antics displayed by the poor sports in their particular sport. Close inspection sometimes reveals that this is an attention getting mechanism and that they are willing to resort to negative behaviors to receive the attention of others.

• Other athletes with your son’s problem are so focused on the outcome of a particular event that they lose track of the process. The big picture in becoming proficient and a consistent winner in any sport is to recognize that getting there takes time and experience. Getting better includes competition with those who have more experience and this translates into some loses as a part of improvement.

• Focusing on the opportunity to learn from a less than desirable outcome is one of the great keys to a success in athletics. This includes observing the behavior of the more proficient opponent and learning from his or her style and technique.

• Individuals who go ballistic when they lose are often individuals with problems of low self-esteem. They view their performance as a direct measure of their self worth, becoming so subsorbed in winning that they equate losing with being a rotten, lousy, totally unsuccessful individual in all respects of life.

• The poor loser needs to frequently remind themselves that sports are designed to entertain themselves and other people with winners and losers to make the event more interesting. Without an uncertain outcome, there would be much less interest in playing or watching the sport in the first place. Sports losses are disappointments, not death sentences.

Helping your son learn to deal with loss now can be a great benefit in helping him deal with the many challenges of adult life in the world outside of play.

Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D. Copyright 2000