7 year old son cries when he competes.

[dbradford]

My 7 year old son (soon to be 7, he is actually 6.90) is a very sensative, caring little boy.  He plays a variety of sports and rough houses with his friends and me (his father) like any other boy.  He takes pride in his positive behavior at school.  He generally avoids actual conflict with other children, however, he takes martial arts and wrestles competitively.  When he gets hit unexpectedly or gets thrown around during a wrestling meet, he generally will cry sighting an "injury" of some kind.  I have seen him take much more punishment in a less structured environment and shake it off without crying.  This behavior is most common during practice/competition settings.  I am sure he is having trouble managing his emotions, anger/fear/embarrasment, but he will not be honest with me or his mother about why he is crying.  I have fallen into the trap of asking leading questions to get answers so I cannot trust the conclusions we have draw about what is going on with his behavior/reaction.  We have given him opportunities to compete in other ways but he wants to continue with these sports and displays disappointment if we have to miss unexpectedly.  How can we help him get through this?  Is this normal?

[specialmom]

Wow, they start wrestling young!  

Ya know, learning how to lose is a life lesson.  We have to teach our kids to be good winners and good losers.  I'd practice this at home with other things----  games that are physical, board games, etc.  Don't let him win all the time and have him verbalize "good game" either way.  

If this problem is isolated to wrestling, I'd tell him that if he cries, he can't do it.  Then if he still did, I'd take him out of it for the rest of the season.  Then you can try again next season and hopefully he'll have learned the lesson that we have to be good sports as well as having emotionally matured some.  good luck

[Kweenkayce]

I'm having problem too. My son is 5 yrs old, he is very strong, tough, active little boy. But with wrestling he loves it but always seems to cry when he thinks he's gonna loose, we explain to him it doesn't matter just try your hardest, its about having fun. He will be winning 13-0 and as soon as his knee touches mat, he looses it and sobs, now at practice too! I don't kow what to do :( it's embarrassing how much he cries and cries and cries, he's an emotional wreck it's like overly crying

[RockRose]

Look around at the other mats,  dad.  Boys who wrestle cry all the time when they lose.  Considering how tough wrestlers usually look,  it's a surprise how often they burst into tears when they are pinned or injured.

You don't see crying like that on the soccer field,  or the baseball field - in my experience it's limited to wrestlers.  Baffling.  And they seem to do it unashamedly - they're not blinking back tears,  they're sobbing.

My son wrestled for two seasons, the competitors were 4 - 18 years old,  and the older boys burst into tears as often as the little ones,  even in front of their girlfriends.  

It must be very emotionally stressful to wrestle is all I can think.

If this is the only time you see it,  don't worry.  At the end of the match he does still have to shake the opponents hand,  so he can't be excused from doing that,  but crying apparently is fine from what I've seen.