The parents sound awful. I know a family like this. Competitive with everything and anything. It’s not just with the kids, it’s with every other family they are “friends” with. They’re exhausting and not much fun to be around. Distance yourself.

Your friends sound Godawful, OP. I would address it head-on, because they're not only hurting your child, they're hurting their own child, for life, with this poor upbringing. After you've said your piece, I think you should distance yourselves for a bit so they can mull things over and have time to adjust.

"Constantly introducing competitive elements is harmful, Larla and Larlo - you're setting up my kid to fail, since yours is 2 years older, and she doesn't enjoy our gatherings anymore. Furthermore, if you do this to your kid all the time with everyone, you're raising them to think everything's a competition all the time, and winning is everything - which is also setting up your own kid for self-esteem issues and failure because they won't always win. Please think about praising effort, not achievement."

I have an east-Asian husband who used to be very cluelessly competitive like this. My friend and I had to explain to him how he wasn't doing any kids any favors by behaving like this.

Anonymous wrote:Either stand up for her or stop hanging out with them.
I bet their daughter hates having to compete with her friend as much as your kid hates losing. What kind of messed up family is this?
My aunt's husband is extremely competitive and it is exhausing. Nothing can ever just be fun. Even a puzzle is a competition on who can get the border done first, who gets the last piece!! UGH. no thanks.

We stopped hanging out with a family like this. In hindsight? They were competitive pre-kids and it rubbed us the wrong way, but we never noticed. Interrupting vacations because they had to run a route to beat someone’s Strava time, sending us their house listing with the paid price after close, asking when we were going to move into a bigger house- everything was a competition.. We had a blind spot for it because we were friends.

Once we had kids, I started slowly pulling back after they obsessively compared developmental milestones of our kids (born 9 months apart, so nothing to compare!), books read, and swim strokes mastered. Once my friend asked for my DD’s swim team time trial results so she could compare her daughter’s results from a different team, I stopped texting back and we don’t hang out anymore.

Either stand up for her or stop hanging out with them.
I bet their daughter hates having to compete with her friend as much as your kid hates losing. What kind of messed up family is this?
My aunt's husband is extremely competitive and it is exhausing. Nothing can ever just be fun. Even a puzzle is a competition on who can get the border done first, who gets the last piece!! UGH. no thanks.

Stop hanging out with them.

These people seem like complete a-holes. Drop them like it's hot.

Anonymous wrote:Defend your kid. Protect the space from competition.

Her: I’m going to draw a flower!
Them; let’s see who can draw the best flower!
You: nah, just draw whatever makes you happy. This isn’t a competition.

+ more. Keep it simple. Be firm. If they push back, they are not good friends for this stage in life.