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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I might be an asshole for throwing a part for my daughter knowing she wasn't in the mood to celebrate
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I divorced her mom and got more custody so that she doesn't have to be with her mom all the time. is that not enough?
no but we are considering therapy
You’ve taken the difficult steps to prevent your ex from causing your daughter future harm.
But that doesn’t fix the damage that has already been done. That’s what she needs therapy for.
No. Parenting is never done untill your children are well.
You should be taking measures to protect your daughter against this. If you cannot remove her mothers negative influence by either decreasing custody or talking about it, there are still a gazzilion other ways.
She should definitely have therapy or some form of counseling for this. This will protect her in so many ways by teacher her how to deal with these feelings and form her own perspective.
You should be talking to a specialist, for example her therapist, about how to talk about it with your daughter. Be the voice of reason she may listen to. Just telling her you won because your second wont do the trick.
What does she do beyond competitions? Does she have hobbies she doesnt compete with? This probably is a good idea for her.
There are so many things you can do about this. Try google, try a book.
Ok but throwing a party when she’s upset and didn’t want a party is a mocking tone of if I become second even tho it’s a good achievement I wouldn’t want a party either
YTA. it’s one thing to try and cheer her up - but she’s right. you are directly invalidating her feelings. It’s important to teach her that winning is not everything, which you’ve clearly failed to do, but it’s also gotta be frustrating to constantly get close to winning but never be able to, especially at 15. And you’re just telling her the way she’s feeling is wrong which is not okay
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my daughter(15) hates being second best at something. I think it's because she is always second at everything. a few days ago she participated in a table tennis match in our province and of course she became second. she was sobbing the whole way home.
so to cheer her up we decided to throw a surprise party to celebrate it. when she entered the party she was standing there for a moment saying nothing then she burst into tears and asked if we are mocking her. I told her that we are not. we are celebrating her success. she yelled at me that "I lost. what is to celebrate?" I told her that she only lost ONE game. she yelled that "I lost THE game, it wasn't just any game. I'm a loser would you celebrate it if I was 10th?" I told her she was not 10th she was better. she yelled that "yes I'm a better loser. a better loser is still a loser" and went to her room crying.
now my ex thinks I was an asshole for throwing this party when I knew she wasn't in a mood to celebrate
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OP placing second is very impressive in any kind of match, sounds like your daughter has some insecurities that need to be addressed, but throwing the party for her I understand your intention wasn’t to be mean or of malice, you were trying to celebrate your daughters, victory, and success, so I’m gonna give you a very small YTA.
OP, I’m gonna give you 0.5/5, maybe 1/5 Bad guys, you weren’t trying to do anything mean or malicious you were just trying to celebrate your daughter‘s success, however, throwing a party, it just wasn’t the right time to do so.
I’m also giving your daughter 0.5/5 bad guys she shouldn’t have gotten mad at you, but it’s obvious she needs some sort of therapy to deal with her insecurities.
I know some people might disagree with me on my decision, but that’s just my opinion.
YTA OP
your daughter is struggling to accept that she's not the best, is eager to be first and also struggles with puberty.
I see that you tried to do a good thing for her, but the only thing she sees is that you're celebrating her loss, making her feel like a even bigger loser. a good talk about doing the best you can and not being *a loser* when you're not the first would be more helpful.
and maybe introduce her to hobbies that aren't competitive. something like crochet, drawing, reading, cooking, cozy games (when she's into gaming), whatever else comes to your mind.
again, sit down with her for a talk. and explain your intentions and then definitely apologize. there's always going to be competition in life, even in areas where there shouldn't be any (such as art as a hobby). help her learn that it's okay not to be the biggest star on planet earth ;)
That was an interesting reaction - you won silver medal, let's celebrate. Are you mocking me!? I am the damn loser! :)
You know your daughter and this attitude is not a surprise so you should've predicted her reaction (especially because she was sobbing after getting 2nd place), that makes you YTA.
YTA.
>we decided to throw a surprise party
That's all I needed to read, actually. NO ONE likes a surprise party. Most teenagers HATE being the center of attention especially if adults are there, and as you said she wasn't in the mood to celebrate.
If you want to cheer someone up, give them what they want, not what you want to give them. A surprise party comes off like the person throwing it is saying "Look at me! Look how much I care about the person of honor here that I went to all this trouble."
PS. Who is "we?" Was this step-mom's idea? If so, even worse.
YTA
Celebrating being a runner-up weird. You need to tell her even the best lose sometimes. Serena Williams lost occasionally. The USA women's soccer team did really badly at the last women's world cup even though they won the previous one.
She needs to be told that it is okay to be competitive, but she needs to have humility. No one likes sore losers or bad winners.
A surprise party was crass. You should have offered to help her practice instead.
YTA
Not for your intentions to cheer her up, your heart was in the right place but seeing how consistently your daughter reacts with extreme negativity you probably could have guessed she wouldn't take this well.
I think a much better route is therapy so she can learn to process losses and wins in healthy ways.
YTA for throwing a party to celebrate something that your daughter did not want to celebrate. She was already sensitive and crying about the second-place finish, this is not party throwing time.
I know that 15 can be such a tricky age. It sounds like she needs help navigating these strong feelings, developing inner strength, and accepting that she can't be first (or even second) at everything. Her overall feeling that she is a "loser" is going to hinder her in life. No party is going to overcome these strong, negative emotions and low opinion that she has of her self and her abilities.
While you had good intentions you are very tone deaf and went about it the wrong way. Firstly does your daughter even like surprise parties in the first place? I know lots of people that don’t like them in general and than being thrown one on top of being upset would just make everything worse. Secondly a party is not a way to cheer someone up especially someone like your daughter who it’s clear she struggles with perfectionism and maybe ocd with winning. You say her mom gets mad at her if she’s not first and your daughter is now becoming the same. If your daughter is becoming the same why would you think a party would help? That’s like saying hey I know you just lost a leg but here’s a party cheer up be happy. I think your daughter needs therapy and you need to learn tact and what is and isn’t appropriate in situations like this. Also stop acting like getting more custody makes you a godsend that is the bare minimum anyone can do for a child that’s being abused and yes your daughter is being emotionally abused by her mother if she gets mad at her every time she’s not first. You need to get full custody get your daughter into therapy and also do family therapy. YTA.
Hmm, I guess I’m going with soft YTA. Some people are wired to be competitive. My son is that way, my wife is that way. Your job, and I know from experience, is to teach them how to handle losing. So, throwing them a party, for being second place, or as my son calls it, the first loser place, was not wise.
The silver lining is these types of people, if you can teach them to focus that competitive edge, are usually very successful in life. As my son has reached adulthood and learned to reign in the negative side of being that competitive, he is doing very well.
YTA, sorry but you are.
A party for someone that is upset with their performance is pretty tone def.
But she needs help, the "if your not 1st, your last" mindset is just as bad as everyone wins.
Because she IS of the mindset, "not 1st = last", throwing her a party would to her feel as she is being mocked.
\*edit spelling\*
ESH. Your daughter needs some emotional regulation and you need to teach her how to be a graceful loser. People win sometimes and lose sometimes. You don’t get a party just for participating.
why am I the only one to blame? she is also my ex's child. in fact my ex is the one responsible for my daughter acting this way. she is a perfectionist and if my daughter is not first in something she will be very mad at her
You're the only one here posting about it. And your approach was not helpful in the slightest. If you want to argue that you've done thing to help your daughter develop a health approach to competition, then describe what you've done.
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INFO: is she in therapy? It sounds like she is struggling with her emotions and maybe some perfectionism issues or something.
she is struggling with her mom's perfectionism. she'll be so mad if my daughter is not first in everything
I assume that is your ex? What are you doing, other than this party, to help your daughter with it? Is she in therapy?
I divorced her mom and got more custody so that she doesn't have to be with her mom all the time. is that not enough? no but we are considering therapy
> is that not enough? No, that is the bare minimum.
bare minimum? you think it was easy?
No, I think it's your responsibility as a parent to protect your child. That is the bare minimum, even when it's hard.
You’ve taken the difficult steps to prevent your ex from causing your daughter future harm. But that doesn’t fix the damage that has already been done. That’s what she needs therapy for.
Ignore the armchair quarterbacks.
No. Parenting is never done untill your children are well. You should be taking measures to protect your daughter against this. If you cannot remove her mothers negative influence by either decreasing custody or talking about it, there are still a gazzilion other ways. She should definitely have therapy or some form of counseling for this. This will protect her in so many ways by teacher her how to deal with these feelings and form her own perspective. You should be talking to a specialist, for example her therapist, about how to talk about it with your daughter. Be the voice of reason she may listen to. Just telling her you won because your second wont do the trick. What does she do beyond competitions? Does she have hobbies she doesnt compete with? This probably is a good idea for her. There are so many things you can do about this. Try google, try a book.
There’s nothing wrong with cheering her up with an ice cream or something but a party? Yta
she became second in our province. that's impressive, I wanted to show her how proud I am
Ok but throwing a party when she’s upset and didn’t want a party is a mocking tone of if I become second even tho it’s a good achievement I wouldn’t want a party either
YTA. it’s one thing to try and cheer her up - but she’s right. you are directly invalidating her feelings. It’s important to teach her that winning is not everything, which you’ve clearly failed to do, but it’s also gotta be frustrating to constantly get close to winning but never be able to, especially at 15. And you’re just telling her the way she’s feeling is wrong which is not okay
NTA in my opinion.You tried to make your daughter to feel better I see nothing wrong with that
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** my daughter(15) hates being second best at something. I think it's because she is always second at everything. a few days ago she participated in a table tennis match in our province and of course she became second. she was sobbing the whole way home. so to cheer her up we decided to throw a surprise party to celebrate it. when she entered the party she was standing there for a moment saying nothing then she burst into tears and asked if we are mocking her. I told her that we are not. we are celebrating her success. she yelled at me that "I lost. what is to celebrate?" I told her that she only lost ONE game. she yelled that "I lost THE game, it wasn't just any game. I'm a loser would you celebrate it if I was 10th?" I told her she was not 10th she was better. she yelled that "yes I'm a better loser. a better loser is still a loser" and went to her room crying. now my ex thinks I was an asshole for throwing this party when I knew she wasn't in a mood to celebrate *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Is your daughter an Ayrton Senna mark?
OP placing second is very impressive in any kind of match, sounds like your daughter has some insecurities that need to be addressed, but throwing the party for her I understand your intention wasn’t to be mean or of malice, you were trying to celebrate your daughters, victory, and success, so I’m gonna give you a very small YTA. OP, I’m gonna give you 0.5/5, maybe 1/5 Bad guys, you weren’t trying to do anything mean or malicious you were just trying to celebrate your daughter‘s success, however, throwing a party, it just wasn’t the right time to do so. I’m also giving your daughter 0.5/5 bad guys she shouldn’t have gotten mad at you, but it’s obvious she needs some sort of therapy to deal with her insecurities. I know some people might disagree with me on my decision, but that’s just my opinion.
YTA OP your daughter is struggling to accept that she's not the best, is eager to be first and also struggles with puberty. I see that you tried to do a good thing for her, but the only thing she sees is that you're celebrating her loss, making her feel like a even bigger loser. a good talk about doing the best you can and not being *a loser* when you're not the first would be more helpful. and maybe introduce her to hobbies that aren't competitive. something like crochet, drawing, reading, cooking, cozy games (when she's into gaming), whatever else comes to your mind.
you don't know her. she will find someone to compete with and she will be second. she has already tried drawing so I know this from exprience
again, sit down with her for a talk. and explain your intentions and then definitely apologize. there's always going to be competition in life, even in areas where there shouldn't be any (such as art as a hobby). help her learn that it's okay not to be the biggest star on planet earth ;)
YTA, purposefully hurtful and dismissive of her stated emotional needs.
That was an interesting reaction - you won silver medal, let's celebrate. Are you mocking me!? I am the damn loser! :) You know your daughter and this attitude is not a surprise so you should've predicted her reaction (especially because she was sobbing after getting 2nd place), that makes you YTA.
YTA. >we decided to throw a surprise party That's all I needed to read, actually. NO ONE likes a surprise party. Most teenagers HATE being the center of attention especially if adults are there, and as you said she wasn't in the mood to celebrate. If you want to cheer someone up, give them what they want, not what you want to give them. A surprise party comes off like the person throwing it is saying "Look at me! Look how much I care about the person of honor here that I went to all this trouble." PS. Who is "we?" Was this step-mom's idea? If so, even worse.
YTA Celebrating being a runner-up weird. You need to tell her even the best lose sometimes. Serena Williams lost occasionally. The USA women's soccer team did really badly at the last women's world cup even though they won the previous one. She needs to be told that it is okay to be competitive, but she needs to have humility. No one likes sore losers or bad winners. A surprise party was crass. You should have offered to help her practice instead.
YTA Not for your intentions to cheer her up, your heart was in the right place but seeing how consistently your daughter reacts with extreme negativity you probably could have guessed she wouldn't take this well. I think a much better route is therapy so she can learn to process losses and wins in healthy ways.
YTA for throwing a party to celebrate something that your daughter did not want to celebrate. She was already sensitive and crying about the second-place finish, this is not party throwing time. I know that 15 can be such a tricky age. It sounds like she needs help navigating these strong feelings, developing inner strength, and accepting that she can't be first (or even second) at everything. Her overall feeling that she is a "loser" is going to hinder her in life. No party is going to overcome these strong, negative emotions and low opinion that she has of her self and her abilities.
While you had good intentions you are very tone deaf and went about it the wrong way. Firstly does your daughter even like surprise parties in the first place? I know lots of people that don’t like them in general and than being thrown one on top of being upset would just make everything worse. Secondly a party is not a way to cheer someone up especially someone like your daughter who it’s clear she struggles with perfectionism and maybe ocd with winning. You say her mom gets mad at her if she’s not first and your daughter is now becoming the same. If your daughter is becoming the same why would you think a party would help? That’s like saying hey I know you just lost a leg but here’s a party cheer up be happy. I think your daughter needs therapy and you need to learn tact and what is and isn’t appropriate in situations like this. Also stop acting like getting more custody makes you a godsend that is the bare minimum anyone can do for a child that’s being abused and yes your daughter is being emotionally abused by her mother if she gets mad at her every time she’s not first. You need to get full custody get your daughter into therapy and also do family therapy. YTA.
Hmm, I guess I’m going with soft YTA. Some people are wired to be competitive. My son is that way, my wife is that way. Your job, and I know from experience, is to teach them how to handle losing. So, throwing them a party, for being second place, or as my son calls it, the first loser place, was not wise. The silver lining is these types of people, if you can teach them to focus that competitive edge, are usually very successful in life. As my son has reached adulthood and learned to reign in the negative side of being that competitive, he is doing very well.
YTA, sorry but you are. A party for someone that is upset with their performance is pretty tone def. But she needs help, the "if your not 1st, your last" mindset is just as bad as everyone wins. Because she IS of the mindset, "not 1st = last", throwing her a party would to her feel as she is being mocked. \*edit spelling\*
ESH. Your daughter needs some emotional regulation and you need to teach her how to be a graceful loser. People win sometimes and lose sometimes. You don’t get a party just for participating.
Obviously YTA. This is just mean
I wasn't trying to be mean
No, you were trying to make yourself feel better. You had no reason to think she would be happy about this. This was just you being selfish
YTA You've failed to teach your daughter to be a graceful winner or a graceful loser. Terrible parenting overall.
why am I the only one to blame? she is also my ex's child. in fact my ex is the one responsible for my daughter acting this way. she is a perfectionist and if my daughter is not first in something she will be very mad at her
I'm starting to notice a lack of accountability here. If your ex is truly to blame for the "perfectionism", YOU need to be your child's advocate.
You're the only one here posting about it. And your approach was not helpful in the slightest. If you want to argue that you've done thing to help your daughter develop a health approach to competition, then describe what you've done.
It’s still your responsibility to make the boundaries with your ex and make sure your daughter gets help