Ren on winning and losing in games

We just arrived home from my son’s Social Group Therapy session at Skill Builder Center in Manila.  Even though I am quite tired from traveling from Manila to Cavite, I can’t wait to share to you my son’s latest milestone.

Before, whenever Ren was asked to join a game, he doesn’t care if he will win or lose.  He obliged to do what’s been asked, but that’s all, wala na syang pakialam manalo o matalo.

Today was a different story.  They played a Limbo rock game, and to those who doesn’t know, the goal of this game is to go under the stick without any part of your body touching it.  If I remember it right, I think there were at least 8 kids who played it a while ago.  The therapist needed to call their names one by one before they could pass under the stick.  Ren hates waiting, it is very challenging on his part to do it.  This exercise helps the kids overcome that difficulty.  There are times that he can’t wait to be called so he goes ahead of every one else.  What the teacher does is to make him do it again and wait for his name to be called, he doesn’t whine naman so that’s good.

When there were only 4 kids left, his back accidentally touched the stick which made him out of the game.  He was asked to sit down, I saw that his mood changed and is about to cry but when the teacher told him “Ren it’s okay”, I noticed the change on his face and that he was able to calm down himself and controlled his emotion.  Proud mama moment ito!

And since there was no winner, the teachers asked the last 4 kids to do it again.  This time, Ren flat on the floor, crawled like a flat worm and made sure that he will not touch the very low stick.  He was even teased that the he made the floor shine (like a floor polisher LOL) because of what he did.  But because of what he did, he was declared the winner of the game.  Fail lang kasi wala ako dalang camera 🙁 sayang di ko nakuhanan ng picture.

I am so proud of him, because this time he showed that he can be competitive if he wanted to.  There is no material prize that can be his motivation to win the game.  I think what made him do his best to win it was that he wanted to stay longer on the game.  The cheers and praises afterwards was just a bonus factor that he got.

Nakakataba ng puso.  I hope with the continuous follow up that we do at home and at school, he will continuously improve his social skills more and other good behavior as well.

For documentation purposes: Today, Ren learned to control his emotion and calmed himself after he lost and also to be competitive.

How about you mothers, what are the new things you discovered about your kids lately? I would love to hear your stories too.