fear of failure for a 4 years old

[French_Uncle]

My nephew (from a Chinese family) is 4 years old, and is completely terrified of any sort of failure. For example, he will only engage in a new game if he feels he can succeed, he will drop a game if it looks like he is not going to win, he gets in tears if one of the planes on his little video game starts to show an unhappy face because it is getting delayed, etc.
His (Chinese) reading ability is really advanced, and he loves to show off how much stuff he has memorized, and keep repeating "I am really good, right?" (very probably echoing his parents and grand parents).
His parents made him learn pretty difficult stuff at a very young age (e.g. recognizing English letters when he could hardly speak).
When he was a little younger, he was terrified of getting dirty, he would not even walk on the dark wooden floor at our place if he could see dust on it.

I am concerned that this could put him in really difficult situations later on because I believe being able to face failure is probably as important as being able to bring success... And overall, it does not seem to be a very balanced behavior. Or am I just overly concerned?

What should I tell his parents, if anything at all?

[AnnieBrooke]

Google "Tiger Mom" for all the controversy on this issue.  I read a very moving piece by a Chinese guy, who felt all his life (until massive therapy as an adult) like he was a total moron thanks to the hard time his parents gave him about learning.

[RockRose]

Uncle,  I think this is one of two things.     Either his parents have pushed him too hard and refuse to accept anything but success from him (I'm not really getting that from your post - it sounds like although they exposed him to very high levels of learning early,  I'm not sensing they are rigorous in insisting he always be the best in the class).

The other option is that he's what we used to call a "sore loser".  With maturity he'll have to learn no be more socially graceful when he's not winning,  but for now,  he's too young to hide these feelings well.  

I've certainly seen boys who absolutely can NOT bear to lose at anything,  and boys who don't care all that much overall if they win.  

He's the kind that can't bear it.  They need to work on the "sore" behaviors by not acknowledging that he's "really good" when he asks,  but rather say ooh that's the interesting part of the game right there,  or something neutral,  and say if you keep acting like this I won't want to play a game with you.

It'll happen.  ;D  It's a growth thing.

Best wishes.