To feel forcing cross county on children can be counter productive in enjoying fitness

[rabbit12345]

Debate with my DH this morning . DH is a keen runner. He discovered his love of running two years ago after always being a big sedentary child/adult. He now runs 15k a day and loves running.

Today I gave DD a note (first time ever she is in year 9 and PE is a core GCSE subject at her school) so that she did not have to do cross country today. There was a good reason for her not to do it but DH thought I should be forceful in encouraging our daughter to take part.

I should say that we are a very active family. My DD in question dances 5 x a week for 2 hours a time.

My argument stems from my childhood. I remember having to run around a muddy school field in the freezing cold, gasping for breath (some girls were physically sick). You had the naturally sporty girls who would fly around the field and it only led to feeling more inferior and ultimately I ended up bunking off from the lesson or forging notes from my parents. I believe that this has led to a lifetime aversion to running. Every time I think I would like to try, I remember the muddy school field. In many ways I feel that being forced into it as a child, led to my general aversion to physical activity as an adult and it took me years to look at this differently and start finding activities that I loved.

So my argument is to encourage physical activity for the children but in areas that they love and not to worry if she decides that she does not enjoy running around a muddy field. (I told her to walk it if she wants) I feel by putting pressure on her could be counter-productive. I just feel health and fitness is so important and should be approached in an enjoyable way and I do not understand why the school do not make nutrition/lifestyle an important part of the lesson.

DH says that there are things in life you just have to do and we should take that view with DD. But surely this relates to paying bills etc. As an adult if she realises she does not have to do it then she will not if she has been forced through childhood. Surely it is better to educate a healthy lifestyle in it's entirety?

AIBU.

[Guiltypleasures001]

Should I now start a thread about also hating fecking sports day, and how we had to pick a track sport and a field sport.

Have you ever had to run a relay or the hundred meters with huge norks ffs, having had them chosen for you. Discus and javelin yep, running err no.

[Me2017]

One reason I pay school fees is that they are forced into cross country at all ages! It perhaps partly explains why the 8% at private schools get 50 - 80% of the bset jobs too. Vive cross country running.

[BigPointyStick]

Auden once said that compulsory games at public school gave him a good understanding of what it would be like to live under fascism.

Fucking word.

[HyacinthFuckit]

Sounds like you're getting jibbed then me2017. I skived cross country just as much at private as I did at state...

[Megainstant]

Most of the country's best under 15 xc runners come from state school Me2017.

There were Plenty of fat, puking, crying, skiving girls during the annual school xc at my dds private school.

[Trifleorbust]

I think you're teaching your daughter to make excuses for things she doesn't want to do, when sometimes things just need doing. Cross country is one of those parts of education that - hate to say it - build character and real self-esteem, not the kind of self-esteem based in a nebulous belief that you can do 'anything you want' when you can't Some of the kids who are still trying after the first mile covered in mud and who finish the course will feel a sense of achievement that will stay with them for life. Make her try, OP.

[Mumoftwoyoungkids]

Steve Redgrave talks about this in his autobiography. Can't remember the details but his basic theory is that sport is, and should be, for all. That everybody should be able to find a sport that they love and that they want to continue into adulthood.

Thinking about the body shapes of the athletes at Rio this should be true. If I was in charge of the PE national curriculum then "Help child find a sport that they love, help them reach their potential at it" would pretty much cover it.

Dh had an "interesting" experience with school rugby. He was inarguably very sporty as he was a junior international at a sport. School was very into rugby. Very agressive rugby. Dh got injured during rugby and missed several representative matches. After this FIL went into school to try and discuss how this could be worked. The suggestion was to make Dh run laps / do press up / anything else unpleasant (as he had to do this type of thing anyway) round the rugby pitch (to ensure no one else felt he was getting special treatment) but to keep him away from all of the contact sport. PE department said no. So for dh's last year at school FIL wrote him a note every single time there was rugby and he sat on the side and jeeps score. And then went home and did several hours of training.

BIL is several years younger and with him the stakes were even higher. He was a senior international by the time he was 13 and received thousands of pounds worth of lottery money each year. By 15 he was a full time professional (in between doing his GCSEs.) FIL again started by being reasonable, then got the Olympic committee involved. (Who were surprisingly unkeen to let a future Olympian ruin their career for a pointless rugby game.) PE department eventually under pressure from the head. (Who was pretty reasonable.)

At 16 BIL was sent to a different school for A levels who was completely happy for him to have a very part time timetable, to miss lots due to international fixtures and didn't care if he never set foot on the rugby field.

This is one of the reasons why so many top young athletes go to private schools - state schools seem to be completely unable to deal with unusual requests. Where as private schools have realised that having "Susan Smith, a Blah blah pupil" in the paper every other week when child wins something impressive is actually a rather positive thing.

[a7mints]

It is important for kids to realise that their bodies are their own and no-one has the right to make them run til they feel sick if they don't want to.

MY DC went to a state school with an athlete who is now an Olympic gold medalst. who was off more than they were there! The school embraced it!

[StickyProblem]

My own experience of cross country is like others on the thread - early 80s, being sent round the local muddy hills for a whole morning - they stopped actual lessons for the morning for some reason. Pointless, vile, scary, exhausting, put me off running for life.

My DD aged 11 has just done cross country for the first time this week. We live next door to the school and they set off past our house so we hear them all shrieking as they start - and the applause when the announce the winner. DD is unsporty and probably unfit and I'm racking my brains as to how to get her into sport more. She's also prone to taking a dive or refusing to do things she doesn't want to do.

However, she managed the cross country (although she said her throat was killing her when she'd finished), she came 29th out of about 60 (far better than I used to do) and she didn't love it, but she quite liked it. She said the teachers ran alongside them and chatted about out of school stuff for some of the way. The school is a specialist sports one and they seem pretty good at actually teaching them, instead of abandoning them to the hills. They tie a lot of sport to "houses" so there's a competitive and a team element to it.

With any sort of throat problem it's fair to say it counts as a medical thing so it's a get out, so YANBU. But if I'd projected my own hatred of vile unsympathetic 1980s cross country onto my DD, she would have lost out, because the modern world does this a lot better. I need to take any opportunity for someone to tell her she HAS to do sport as part of school - that's the only way she'll find something she might like to do more of.

[HyacinthFuckit]

From what OP has said, the modern world isn't doing it a lot better though. Or not at DDs school at least. There's an issue somewhere if a kid who's recovering from a throat infection would get shouted at for walking cross country instead of running.

I've heard Steve Redgrave discussing the subject and very much agreed. IIRC Kelly Holmes has also been very critical of the way cross country is done in schools. Said even she didn't like it! It seems there's real awareness of this problem amongst our most successful athletes. Perhaps we ought to listen.

[permanentlyexhaustedpigeon]

Funny, I hated PE at school but loved cross-country. It was the one PE lesson where teams weren't picked, I didn't have to worry about or expect the "oh for God's sake Pigeon!" when I missed a netball goal, or the "why does Pigeon have to be on our team cause that means we'll definitely lose??' during the ghastly rounders matches. Cross country let me go off by myself and without all the yelling and bitchiness, I didn't do too badly.

I was never that great at it, but it was handled very much in the way Parkrun is - you run at your own pace and try and beat your own time every week. We had a winner each month who had improved most on their time as well as the weekly winners of the run. There are ways to make it focussed on competing against yourself rather than against other people, and it would be nice for schools to take that approach occasionally.

And in later years I won by miles as I wasn't nipping off for a cig in the middle of the run...

Walking should be allowed - and if someone's getting over an illness it is far better to encourage them to walk/ run rather than sit it out altogether!

[Kingsizecrochetblanket]

I liked PE at primary school, then was humiliated during my first ever high school PE lesson.
I was asked to do a cartwheel in front of everyone. I told her I couldn't do them and she made me try. I of course fell flat on my face in front of my new class. It went downhill from there. I was forced to do cross country with a sore throat too, felt like razor blades. I'm 37 and I'm still bitter about how I was treated by that bitch teacher! (Others were much nicer)
YANBU.
It took me until my 30s to even attempt excersise. I found something I enjoy! It's simple, if they make it enjoyable at school, people won't shy away from keeping themselves fit as adults!

[WhatALoadOfOldBollocks]

"I believe it was what they call character forming"
Oh yes, it's definitely character forming, LOL. In my case into an at times bitter angry middle aged woman with a pathalogical dislike of sport and PE teachers, and a general hatred for "team work". Well done school. Perhaps if PE teachers had employed some empathy when working with the less able students like myself, allowed us to wear weather-appropriate kit (I really feel the cold and PE in winter was torturous), and made the focus "physical activity" rather than sport, I would've enjoyed it. Thankfully I discovered that I actually love walking in the countryside and have done plenty of this to keep fit, and even enjoyed running and swimming on occasion, but that's no thanks to the PE teachers.

"Cross country is one of those parts of education that - hate to say it - build character and real self-esteem"
Really? How does it do that then when the teachers just tell students to run twice round the school field? To call my PE lessons "lessons" is inaccurate because I don't remember the teachers actually teaching students how to get fit. Running is something that is best built up gradually, like with couch to 5k, but we were expected to run till we couldn't, then we got shouted at for walking.

[HyacinthFuckit]

Yeah, that self esteem bit is a pretty bizarre one isn't it? When so many posters are saying it did the exact opposite for them! I mean, how does cross country build self esteem if you're crap at it and get no help to be better, just humiliated? I can see that the character stuff might be a matter of opinion and experience: personally I feel I'm enough of a character anyway so I'm glad I skived it so much, but am willing to believe there are people who think it had a positive effect on theirs or whatever. But self-esteem, that seems like a bit of a logic fail.

[EmpressOfTheSevenOceans]

Similar story to several other posters. If you wouldn't expect a child to just know how to do algebra or write an essay in French, how do you expect them to just know how to run distances?

Our cross country was laps round the school field too, & 25 years on, I still remember the sheer humiliation of being lapped by most of the class every single time. I'm lucky that I wasn't bullied but I still hated it.

Then this summer I decided to try C25K. What a fucking massive difference. I'm now training for a 10K in May & yes, it has done a lot for my self-esteem. Much more than staggering in out of breath ever did.

[ShelaghTurner]

YANBU. I also detested cross country running and found it utterly humiliating. DD1 is still primary so they don't do it yet but I can already see that she's not a runner. She's far more suited to tennis etc. If it comes to it when she gets to cross country age then I'll happily write her a note. She may love it, who knows. But I suspect it.

[DontMindMe1]

I think they should keep it as an essential part of the system.....so kids are forced to think for themselves and rebel against stupid dictats.

We had to run cross country across the reservoirs and moors, no matter the weather. There were no staff or public along the route so if any of us collapsed it would be a while before help arrived.
Rule was if you didn't make it back within a certain time - you had to do it again! Sadists!

I'm not a runner, so i walked it - everytime i had to do it. Got me out of lessons, i'd stashed goodies the day before so i had plenty of food, drink and music to listen to - oh the Walkman days! [GRIN]

There was bugger all the teachers could do! lol!

[insan1tyscartching]

No YANBU I wrote many notes, pretty much every week for dd1 when she was at school so that she didn't have to endure PE. Dd2 isn't even timetabled to do PE as ed psych felt it was in no way beneficial to dd's school experience so hasn't attended PE since early y7. Dd2 isn't the only child not attending PE in her year group three more don't attend down to anxiety as well probably as a result of the power mad and totally insensitive teachers. Dd won't attend PE ever again as it is written into her statement of SEN to ensure that she doesn't.
Dd1 tells dd2 that PE teachers are PE teachers because they aren't good enough at sport to make a career from it and not clever enough to teach a real subject. Have to say my experience of their PE teachers and mine back in the day makes me think she's got a point tbh.
Outside of school they are both active and enjoy various sporting activities so don't think for a minute they are/ have been missing out.

[MiscellaneousAssortment]

Character building? Snort! Perhaps character can be built through a certain amount of adversity. But I think it's under estimating the fear. Like saying a little mild torture is character building too... water boarding, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, that kind of stuff.

In reality the worse type of PE lessons can break children, and decimate their self esteem, body confidence and emotional resilience, not just at that moment but for years after.

Sorry if that sounds extreme, but what (used to?) happen/s in PE IS extreme. Proper lord of the flies stuff but with the addition of an adult sanctioning it.

IME it teaches you that people in authority have the power to bully and humiliate you. And you are powerless to defend yourself or keep yourself from harm.

It teaches you that they have the power to take away your body autonomy and that listening to your own body is not allowed.

Listen to the evil fucker in the nice warm tracksuit blasting away on their whistle and shouting abuse at the fat/ thin/ asthmatic/ poorly / disabled / puking / vulnerable stragglers. Don't you dare listen to your body, not even if it's doing you harm to carry on. Especially not then in my experience! Teacher knows best, and if you cannot physically obey then you deserve what you get, right?

It teaches you that they have the power to make sure you know exactly where you are on the pecking order of life. By encouraging other bullies... I guess you could think of it as a bullying master class.

It teaches you that people can laugh at your body and its ok to make fun of anyone who looks different for whatever reason (boobs, hair, expensive kit, thinness, fatness, red hair etc etc etc).

It teaches you to do anything you can to escape. And that a short sprint and a one handed jump over the fence is the way to freedom, then yay, let's get physical! And if that's smoking fags or hanging out by that dodgy street with the scary men hanging around... so be it. Or hiding in a field in the rain all day, then yup, even that's better than the systemised cruelty of your traditional cross country / PE lesson.

Auden had it right.

Now, if they actually, taught, that might really help children get fit and keep healthy!

[Balletgirlmum]

My daughter hated PE at junior school & was so pleased when she find out she wouldn't have to do it at secondary.

Not one teacher (& they had a specialist PE teacher) picked up on the fact that she was rubbish at running because her energy was being wasted as she was trying to run with turnout (where the hips are rotated like a ballet dancer). She's hypermobile too.

But now she's in year 10 she has better fitness levels than mist girls he age. She dies a high impact boot camp every Saturday morning (run by ex Royal Ballerina) & she can plank forever!

Ds's school is good for PE though. They are streamed for PE & have one lesson of PE where they rotate between using the fitness equipment/badminton/gymnastics/cross country/athletics. They also have a games lesson where they choose between hockey & rugby.

The girls have a dance option (sexist I know)

[Balletgirlmum]

Road running is also bad for girls who dance a lot for the reasons dodo outlined.

[StrawberryLime]

If she's recovering from an illness, then YANBU. Should have put that in your OP.
However, people whining about forced cross country seriously need to get a grip.
I hated cross country, and always used to be last. The same girls always used to come first, and just whizzed their way along the riverbank and down the country lanes, and I'd always be one of the stragglers at the back.
Until one day I thought "screw this, I'm not going to be last anymore" and my competitive streak took over. After a few times of building up stamina and runs, came in 5th and my PE teacher nearly fell over with shock.
Seriously couldn't believe it and couldn't stop telling me.
So yes, suck it up if not an illness. Can't be doing with the attitude "if it's too hard or you don't like it, ditch it."
Crap attitude to have.

[mmgirish]

What would you suggest? Let the students pick and choose which PE lesson they take part it?

[Trifleorbust]

God there are some absolute wimps on here, aren't there? Torture? Running round a muddy field for half an hour isn't torture. It's difficult but that is part of what makes it worthwhile. If everything was easy no-one would ever achieve anything. No wonder we are raising a generation of total weaklings.

[hollinhurst84]

It is if you can't run distance! I hated being made to run distance stuff, at the time I was training outside of school and doing 100m and hurdles
Cannot run any form of distance, couldn't then and can't now. I'm built like a sprinter, not a distance runner
Luckily we did other stuff like basketball and climbing (indoor wall) which I really enjoyed