How to handle sports day this year?

The extent to which you don’t get it is demonstrated by you thinking those coming in last ‘being loudly cheered on’ is a good thing - it’s a central part of the humiliation.

Clearly you are not someone who found sports day emotionally damaging, and you have zero ability to empathise with people different to you…

The humiliation and misery of being forced to do sports day had an extremely negative effect on my self-esteem that followed me to adulthood. Far more than any depleted levels of ‘resilience’ that might have been the result of staying away. My dad died when I was 9, I learned about resilience pretty quick.

Boom. Exactly

but Op I do sympathise as someone who always won I didn’t like seeing others come last but as this poster has said it’s just a day for those who are good at sports to shine

But reading test and maths tests aren’t undertaken in front of the entire school and parent body with everyone shouting at you todo better.

If you were at my dd's school then you turn up at 1.30pm. Watch the kids parade then watch them do 8 different activities - moving around the field. They're all competing for house points. It's frenetic and they all seem to enjoy it. The emphasis is on being active - throwing bean bags, egg and spoon etc
Then for the last 10 mins the fastest boy and girl from each class have a running race. (They do heats in school in the week before) They want to race the crowd goes wild cheering them on. All done by 3pm and then a bar.
Your school have chosen the way they do it. So choose your response. I'd take the kid out.

Excellent post

I’ve just written a sick note for DS1 - 18 and DS2 -16. I wish I had let them skip it far earlier in their school career.

If you/your DC feel humiliated at a sports day then the school is not doing it right.
Coming last in an event should not be a humiliating experience and the school and parents should be working with the children to help them see the value of exercise and taking part.
Can you work with your school, if so far they have not been very imaginative, in setting up some exercises that those who don't want to race would benefit from?
Eg. jogging/walking around the perimeter of the field/track a suitable number of times. No first/last positions, teachers and parents joining in.
Or taking part in an exercise or dance class.

This.

Absolutely do not take them out.

Can you turn it into a celebration day - will you go and watch? Is there a family picnic?

Treat them to a movie and no homework night afterwards as a reward.

Moving your body is really important and sports day can be a really positive experience.

Go into school and apart from the possible taking him out explain this to his teacher. See what they say.

I don’t understand all this talk about “humiliation” on sports day. Who’s humiliating them? People are complaining about how schools are organising sports day but it sounds like the problem is actually the other parents who are watching the races? If there were no spectators would coming last still be humiliating???

I would take them out for the day.
It's not like having to do Maths etc as people are saying IMO.
You wouldn't expect a child with no musical talent who can't sing in tune to stand up in front of hundreds of people and do a solo. And you wouldn't make a child with a speech impediment do a reading in assembly. It would be humiliating for them. Sports day is the equivalent of that for some kids. Give them a break!

This was my line with DS2 - but if I could turn back the clock I would keep him off. At his school no one fails publicly in spelling or maths. No one is humiliated or laughed at for coming last. DS2 got nothing out of sports day and I wish I had handled it differently.

Take them swimming to a water park for the day ,then they still get some exercise

Someone has to be last, just like in a maths test or baking cookies. You should be teaching them that they should take part and that the result really doesn't matter.

On the one hand, I do think part of life is learning to do things you don’t enjoy. But at the same time, I really wonder what sports day ever taught me. For me, it was nothing but humiliation, and like your child, I used to dread it for weeks in advance.

This brings me to one of the bigger problems in schools, how sport and PE are approached. When I think back to my own PE lessons, they were so focused on a narrow range of competitive sports. There was very little emphasis on health or fitness as something important in itself. We weren’t encouraged to enjoy exercise or to understand why it matters for our wellbeing. Instead, we were made to do what felt like the most pointless activities. Cross country springs to mind, just running laps around the school for no clear reason.

I’ve always been fit and active, but that’s because my mum taught us that staying healthy is part of living well. A lot of my friends from school didn’t have that kind of encouragement at home, and even though they were good at sport back then, they haven’t kept active in adult life. It feels like a missed opportunity, and one that’s still happening today.

Of course, there are other subjects that make kids anxious too, like maths, but we don’t make them do competitive sums in front of the whole school and all their parents.

So I do struggle with the idea of taking kids out of things just because they don’t like them, as I think there’s something to be said for building a bit of resilience. But when I look back, I’m not sure what that kind of embarrassment really taught me. If it were me, I’d probably take both children out of school and do something lovely together instead, as long as neither of them feels like they’re missing out.

Children are humiliated daily by being non-academic. Sitting on the 'special' table. All the class knows. The embarrassment factor. Coming home with questions about why the other kids can do the work when they can't. Why they have to have help. Getting laughed at.

Don't underplay that. It's horrible for them.

You can’t use hyper mobility as a reason to get out of sports day though. It is very common and it can actually give you an advantage in sports.

Most schools also put on less serious events that aren’t so competitive. Egg and spoon, obstacle course or 3 legged race type stuff. It is a shame when they don’t.

The school won’t care or do anything about missing one day. They have bigger fish to fry.

This is such a difficult one. You can’t have an emergency dentist appointment every year (!) and from the schools pov if they allow one child to opt out it’s be chaos. With your hyper mobile son can you get the GP or his physio to write a note saying that that amount of exercise on one day isn’t good for his joints and he will have to limit himself to the egg and spoon type races?

Exactly it’s supposed to be fun! Really don’t understand the miss trunchball parents making their child do something they hate for some nebulous “greater good”.

No they don’t become magically “resilient” they will look back and wonder why their mum was such a rule following unresponsive parent. Look at the numerous posters put off sport for years!

I was awesome at my sports days absolutely cleaned up but I was an oct birthday dd1 is July.

Lots of good suggestions re sports day. Are you doing anything to help counteract the hyoermobility? I’m v hyper mobile and ended up in a really bad way in my twenties, requiring lots of physio. The solution was building up muscles, through pilates and weight training. Had this been known I’m sure starting younger would have helped.

sports day is supposed to be fun!
tbh if school makes it in a way that children feel left out, then it's not well done.

not in uk but my dc sports day was a day at the beach.
strictly no parents.
sandcastle building was part of the activities.
and frisbee.
and capture the flag.
it's fun for everyone, no winning, no losing.

school also has an athletic competition but that's by sign up.

I think it is setting them up for a complete lack of resilience, and even worse in boys, the sense that the rules they don’t like don’t apply to them.

There’s No shame in coming last, especially if you have tried your best. That applies even in the Olympic final!

Even at seven he should know that sometimes you just have to get on with it, preferably with good grace. Yes he doesn’t like, but so what- it really is not a big deal.