Being forced to do school sports

[Janey62]

Does anyone know the legal position on having to do school sports day?
My daughter is 8, and was very premature, as a result she is still tiny and not strong. She gets trounced in anything sporty by kids her age. Twice now she has come home from sporting events at school looking totally washed out and promptly vomited. Last week I wrote to the class teacher asking for her to be excused sports day as it was going to be 27 degrees and I knew it would happen again. Because she doesn't want to be last all the time she throws herself at it with such effort that she makes herself ill ( and still comes last). Anyway, the teacher told her that there wasn't anywhere shady to sit at the sports ground , so she may as well join in..... Of course the child feels obliged to do so, and subsequently fell over and broke her little finger- we were in A&E until 9pm that night!!!
As you can imagine I'm not very happy with the teacher, but in all other respects she is an excellent teacher.
Should she have complied with my letter and allowed my daughter to sit out?
Am I being unreasonable?

Rosemary, you're bonkers! I've read Kohn's UP book and your mollycoddling doesn't fit with it at all - quite the opposite in fact!

I wouldn't be inclined to get her to miss sports day - esp if she's trying hard so presumably she wants to do it. I would have thought that most primary schools have mixture of competitive and non competitive sports -so that she wouldn't necessarily finish last in everything.

I would have her checkd by dr though as throwing up continually ndoesn't sound normal.

Your point about finger is silly tbh =- accidents happen anywhere and everywhere.

I forgot to say this earlier OP but I have lots of respect for your dd's attitude to sport.

I was shit at sport when I was at school and I half heartedly walked cross country and was totally defeatist about the whole thing.

Does your dd do any sports out of school? Even if she's not the fastest runner it would be good if she had a backup sport that she enjoyed/was good at?

Thanks pandemoniaa!! I've snorted tea all over my new top!

I hated sports day when I was at primary school, i used to feel big, clumsy, conspicuous , uncoordinated , rubbish . I used to get so nervous.

But then in the classroom I was very good at maths, English, schoolwork in general and got lots of praise and recognition for coming first in tests, answering questions. Some kids must have felt like I did when they were asked to answer a question they didn't understand, or when their results from the spelling test were read out.

Their parents didn't have the option of asking them to opt out of lessons.

I think unless there is a medical condition which precludes it then no your child should not sit out.

Jesus Rosemary why don't you just suggest pinning a sign on the little girls arse that says "kick me, I'm a wimp".

Your suggestion and that would no doubt have the same outcome.

It's sports days, you run a race or two, you win some, you lose some, perhaps you never win any.

So what?

And as for those saying have science competitions etc in front of everybody, the children know who are the academic ones in class because this is obviously the focus of school.

'Everybody wins, everybody get an a for effort' bullshit - do you think the teachers say this in class to those who do badly in tests etc.. like they do at sports day? Of course they bloody don't.

Sports day once a year is no big deal. Suck it up for christs sake. A bloody generation of pansies is what we're raising if we get to sit out because we're not good at something.

And OP, good for your little girl for giving it her all, dont discourage it.

"I expect the people who are claiming sport's days are rediculous etc hated sport themselves as children and these feelings are now being passed down their children. You will (perhaps without realising it) be putting your children off sport, possibly for life."

Nice try. One of my DC hates sports day, as I did. Not so my other DC.

Agree with Worras 11:16 post.

I've read Alfie Kohn's UP book Rosemary - I don't see how your loony suggestions fits in with this style of parenting

Do people really behave as suggested by RosemaryandThyme?

Don't know where I stand on sports day, I was always crap at it although I didn't really hate it until secondary school and by then I was having period cramps every week. I've found my own way in exercise since then, non competitive things that I enjoy.

Does make the no sporty kids feel self concious, but then I guess the crap spellers feel self concious in spelling tests. Although somehow it seems more 'cool' to be good at sports. I'm trying to get ds into a few sporty activities pre school so hopefully he can be at least average at stuff.

All in all though sports are just a part of school that some kids love, others hate, sports never scarred me for life though despite being a bit rubbish.

OP, it sounds as though you're treating her as if she were disabled.

I think it would be worth getting the doctor to check if there is really any physical problem - if not then maybe you should ease up on the assumption that she's physically incapable of doing what other kids her age do.

It sounds as though she's really stressed out and feels that she has 'something to prove' physically. Maybe she shares your worry that she's physically inadequate?

If not then perhaps have a chat along the lines of "games don't matter - we're all good at different things and you're good at X".

I certainly don't think the teacher did anything wrong in allowing the child to participate if she wanted to.

I'm not advocating unconditinal parenting - the complete opposite - honestly pop to the other thread where Maya is encouraging us to "listen and empathise" as a four year old whacks a baby over the head with a brick.....

If pop-up tents and iced water are so humiliating for a little girl I'd have thought mum running along beside her with a sick bucket would be a pretty miserable afternoon too.

This may be the heat making me unreasonable but bloody hell some of you on this thread are unsympathetic!
Cory has it right, OP. There are several things going on I think: having dd checked by doc and your possibly being slightly over protective.
I think your daughter sounds really great for trying so hard or, if the being sick is due to stress, bless her for caring so much.
FWIW I was v premature and my mum mollycoddled me and i couldnt have loved the woman more! But she did make me join in even though iI was rubbish at sport and hated sports day. But was also frankly too lazy to try hard enough to make myself ill. I used to find it properly miserable on sports day and be v relieved when it was over. But apart from temporary embarrassment at my rubbishness, it didnt scar me for life. It is part of life having to participate in things we don't want to.

"Your daughter being tiny has nothing to do with her throwing up and being knackered from sport. I suspect she does very little exercise because you wrap her up in cotton wool. She is therefore unfit."

Oh yes. Definitely. I remember that. It's always the parents', or even worse, the kids' fault for hating sport. People said that to me and parents for years; I even have a doctor report which say "Minervaitalica finds physical activity hard because she is lazy and her parents shoud encourage her to take up sports". Thank God my parents were a lot less judgemental, did lots of research, and guess what - I was diagnosed with a degenerative disability when I was 12.

OP, I don't know what's the underlying cause in your case - could be physical, could be psychological (I used to have some weird coping strategies for PE), or both; however, i have a 29 weeker and at 4 she would be able to do a sports day like the one you describe (she would come last of course). Please consider some further investigation - whether there are problems or not, Cory is right in that either way she may need some support in dealing with such situations.

''Oh yes. Definitely. I remember that. It's always the parents', or even worse, the kids' fault for hating sport.''

I certainly never said it was ALWAYS the parents fault or the childs. I said I 'suspect' she does little exercise. From reading the OP's post do you think that child does a lot of exercise or very little? Come on!

Alpha, you do not have enough information for that assesment. I hardly did any exercise when i was small. Because I COULD NOT physically do it, but most of all becasue I was laughed at by people for the way I was walking/running when I tried. It took doctors 10 years to diagnose the cause of my problems: you must be a really good one to judge so quickly.

assessment. Argh.

Neither do you have enough info minerva. Just because you have an opinion doesn't mean it's right. Neither might mine be right. You are judging too that the OP's daughter might have physical or psychological problems. You are being equally judgemental but I guess that's ok for you isn't it.

I didn't see minerva as making a definite judgment that the OPs dd does have a disability, merely as suggesting that she might have.

What she said was
"OP, I don't know what's the underlying cause in your case - could be physical, could be psychological (I used to have some weird coping strategies for PE), or both" and "Please consider some further investigation".

Which seems sensible advice to me. A doctor might be able to either find a reason for the dd's struggles or lay the mother's fears at rest and encourage her to let the dd be more active.

And the fact that the dd seems to do little exercise is no proof that the mother is overprotective: it could be that or that an undiagnosed problem is preventing her. We don't know. And we're not going to know. But a doctor might.

oh dear we go from letting them sit out because sports day is rubbish and makes children feel bad to lets give them big wooops and medals from the pound shop I dont know what to say .

I don't feel like I was judgemental either Cory but all opinions I guess. Everyone entitled to what they think.

Seems a bit irrelevant since the OP doesn't seem to have come back.

In my own case, I'd say that of the children whom I judged to be grossly overprotected when dcs were little, about half probably were - the other half later turned out to have undiagnosed SN and the parents were just unconsciously adapting to that.

Of course this doesn't mean the other half didn't come to harm through being overprotected; they probably did to some extent. And equally you don't want to overprotect children with SN either; just help them find a way round their problems.

MrsJay - where do you get childrens medals from if not the pound shop ?

Is there some posher medals for sale that I've missed ?

The doctor probably needs to check her out but from someone who was rubbish at school sports I would like to make the following observations.

I was utterly hopeless at sport, limited co-ordination, very slow, a complete no hoper. Always the last on the bench, ridiculed and humiliated in front of everyone else. It's probably why I didn't stay at school and do A'levels or go to university. The day before or morning of games days it got to the point where I used to develop migraines.

When I left school and started work I became quite competitive, became successful, blossomed and generally quite popular. I am well within my bmi at 51, walk a lot, can ride a horse well and swim well. I had a check-up yesterday and the doctor said I was incredibly fit for my age. Many of my school contemporaries who were in the netball team etc., are now overweight, look years older than their age and appear very unfit.

They don't have class positions at school anymore for academic subjects so why the emphasis on competition in sport.

Our ds is exceptionally sporty and has trialled professionally so I don't think I have passed on my views in particular to my children. DD is just like me and under no circumstances would I force her to do sport and I have often asked if she would like to bunk off PE but schools have improved in their approach and although they need to improve further, she has always said, no it's OK, but that hasn't stopped her crying on a pe/sports day at the thought of the others laughing.

I feel very strongly that there are other more beneficial ways to be fit and to exercise rather than organised school sports and I sincerely believe it should not, under any circumstances, be a mandatory part of the curriculum. If children have difficulty with academic subjects, laughing at them wouldn't be allowed at school; how sad that PE teachers, ime, still think it's OK to purposefully humiliate.