Zones of Regulation at Home: A Parent Guide to Big Feelings
4 min read
Social Stories
A Story About Losing a Game before the next board goes flying.
Game night ends the same way every time. Your child is winning and delightful, then they are losing and the board is on the floor, and everybody feels awful.
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Why it works here
Why a social story helps with a story about losing a game
Losing involves a sudden emotional shift with no preparation and no script for what to do next. A story that names the feeling in advance and supplies something concrete to do with it gives your child an option other than the board.
You will recognize this if
- Your child is fine while winning and unrecognizable while losing.
- Games get abandoned rather than finished.
- Losing produces a reaction closer to grief than disappointment.
What the research saysSocial story interventions showed positive effects for social skills and for reducing problem behavior in a meta-analysis of 21 single-case studies.
Guo et al., Frontiers in Psychology, 2026
The setup
How to set it up for a story about losing a game
Takes about five minutes. Use it as written, or keep only the steps your family needs. A short setup that gets used beats a complete one that gets abandoned in week two.
- 1 Name the feeling explicitly and say it is normal and allowed
- 2 Describe what other people do when they lose, in concrete terms
- 3 Give one specific thing your child can do with the feeling
- 4 Include the fact that games end and can be played again
- 5 Practice with very short games where losing arrives quickly and cheaply
- 6 Read the story before games, never after a difficult one
The mistake most families make
Letting your child win to avoid the reaction removes every opportunity to practice, and makes the eventual real loss, at school or with peers, considerably worse.
In the app
Built into the routine, not bolted onto it.
The Social Stories lives inside the same routine your child already follows, so a story about losing a game is a step with a visible length rather than a separate tool somebody has to remember to open.
- Attach it to any step in any routine
- Works for pre-readers, gestalt language processors, and AAC users
- Same setup at home, at school, and in therapy
Set this up for your child.
Five minutes to build, and your child sees it every time a story about losing a game comes around.
$6.99/month after the free trial · Cancel anytime · Also at app.vizyplan.com
Common questions
About a story about losing a game
Should I let my child win?
Occasionally is fine, always is not. A child who never loses at home meets their first real loss somewhere with much higher stakes and no support.
Why is losing so hard?
It arrives suddenly, it is public, and for many children it feels like evidence about themselves rather than an outcome of a game. That is a lot to absorb in one moment.
What games help?
Short ones where losing happens quickly and often, and cooperative games where the group wins or loses together. Both build tolerance at lower cost.
VizyPlan supports routines and communication at home and school. It is not a medical device and does not diagnose or treat any condition. Talk to your child's care team about clinical questions.
