To loathe organised sport and what it does to children?

[AssemblySquare]

There is a back story to this but it’s long and boring. I’m just sick and tired of sport being held up as this wonderful thing that brings people together, but all I have ever seen and experienced is divisiveness, bullying and meanness. I’m so done with it all, especially at grass roots level and at school where most kids seem to get shouted at by PE teachers and coaches taking out their own frustrations that they weren’t quite good enough to make it.

😂😂😂😂 fantastic @PinniGig!!

@MotionActivatedDog

Surely you know that virtually all secondary schools have art clubs etc?

I do, the “what?” Was more a “what point are you trying to make?”

So you know that there are a wide variety of options available for children to achieve, have a goal to reach etc that aren’t sport, so why post as though they aren’t options other than sport?

So you know that there are a wide variety of options available for children to achieve, have a goal to reach etc that aren’t sport, so why post as though they aren’t options other than sport?

You realise I was responding to another poster who implied there weren’t options other than sport?

@AssemblySquare it sounds like your DS had a bad experience, but I don't understand why he kept going with the same team? Grassroots footballs seems particularly bad for that kind of behaviour, but it's certainly not all teams and all coaches.
My DS's play for a local club. They enforce the "Respect " guidelines really well so there is zero tolerance for parents screaming from the sidelines. One DS plays for the highest devision, the players are all very good and parents (not me) and coaches take it very seriously. But, the coaches are kind and reinforce the importance of sportsmanship in the kids. There's another team that's been after DS for a couple of years. No way would I send him there as their coach and the parents are bloody awful and they foster a really toxic attitude.
My other DS's team is very middling, they lose a a lot. But their coach (one of the dads) is brilliant at reassuring them and helping them learn.
My DS's also play cricket for a fabulous club where the emphasis is on participation and development. One DS is county level but at his club he waits his turn with the others, no showcasing allowed.
My eldest struggles academically, and has got through 6 years of being at a primary where academic success was highly prized, by being good at sport. It's where he develops his self esteem, it's his "superpower " amongst his friends. That participation is so so important to him. But because of the teams he's involved in, he absolutely knows that good sportsmanship is vital.

I haven’t RTFT but it is very interesting how views vary. There was a thread a few weeks ago asking how to bring up well adjusted girls and playing a sport was cited over and over again as being really valuable for many reasons. Personally I will encourage it but not push it and see what happens. I didn’t do any extra curricular activities as a child of a low-income working class family, and I’d like DD to have a different experience and to see sports and fitness as an everyday activity that is enjoyable, alongside other things.

@Bryonyshcmyony

Dread and humiliation?! Oh come on. The vast majority of kids who aren't good at it just muck about with their mates.

It was dread and humiliation for me, and even now thirty years later I can remember it like it was yesterday.

This thread has very extreme views. The title is misleading.
Both my ds's are sporty and have enjoyed it. If your kid is not, then it doesn't matter. But I wouldn't let them be confidence destroyed by this. Maybe you need to work more on their inner confidence and assessing anxiety. I am fab at some things and crap at others. Who cares. This needs to be taught. We aren't all good at everything, and that's ok.

Most people aren't brilliant at anything. Does it really matter if you are crap at sports, aren't the next grand chess champion, or can't draw for toffee?

No!

Football is competitive. Ds1 gave up after years, when he couldn't compete and wasn't getting any match time. He then took up boxing.

Ds2 still plays football.

I think OP's views of it all are skewed.

@Whoarethewho

We have a massive obesity crisis caused by lack of exercise and poor eating. We need massively more sport not less.

And to further comment on this: I am obese. I also have a lasting anxiety about any kind of sport or exercise in a public place, or where anyone can see me. I have no confidence and a long-held assumption that I’m terrible at any kind of sport and look ridiculous trying it.

No prizes for guessing where those issues come from.

PE at school was actively traumatic for me, and for a lot of others. Yes there was bullying from the children but also from the teachers. When you’ve got PE teachers (I can name at least three of mine) who are perfectly content to loudly humiliate you in front of the class, it’s no wonder the other children think it’s fine to pile in too.

And yes, this experience isn’t universal. But it’s not unusual.

Dread and humiliation sounds about right for many people’s experiences of school PE. Some of it’s around the sport itself, but also having to get changed in front of your peers can be traumatic for so many reasons, so too many children start off uncomfortable and not in the right frame of mind to engage in the lesson even if it were taught well.
School PE has been gifting ammunition to bullies for generations, and anyone who blithely assumes it’s harmless is lacking empathy.
Exercise is essential, but the approaches we have now fail too many people.

@Oblomov21

This thread has very extreme views. The title is misleading. Both my ds's are sporty and have enjoyed it. If your kid is not, then it doesn't matter. But I wouldn't let them be confidence destroyed by this. Maybe you need to work more on their inner confidence and assessing anxiety. I am fab at some things and crap at others. Who cares. This needs to be taught. We aren't all good at everything, and that's ok.

It's not just lack of confidence though, is it? It's not just not being good at something.

It's the whole bullying/intimidation culture that surrounds competitive team sports for those who aren't good at it.

Kids can handle being crap at things. That's life. But you don't get victimised, bullied and laughed at if you draw a crap picture in art, or your cake doesn't rise in cooking, or your wooden fish's tail falls off, or your get a sum wrong or make a spelling mistake. That's because it doesn't affect those around you.

If you're in a compulsory games lesson, having to do a competitive team sport where you've never been taught the rules, don't have the fitness/ability to play well, and end up being intimidating, ostracised, bullied, victimised, when you make mistakes or miss a shot or whatever, it's a completely different thing.

When that "on field" bullying extends elsewhere to being burned with fag ends, having your property stolen/damaged, then it's clearly not acceptable. That's the reality.

Of course the good sports kids just call it "banter"!!!

@Oblomov21

Most people aren't brilliant at anything. Does it really matter if you are crap at sports, aren't the next grand chess champion, or can't draw for toffee?

No!

It DOES matter when it leads to bullying, victimisation etc.

@Oblomov21

This thread has very extreme views. The title is misleading. Both my ds's are sporty and have enjoyed it. If your kid is not, then it doesn't matter. But I wouldn't let them be confidence destroyed by this. Maybe you need to work more on their inner confidence and assessing anxiety. I am fab at some things and crap at others. Who cares. This needs to be taught. We aren't all good at everything, and that's ok.

Unfortunately in team sports, kids ARE made to feel like it matters.

Children who are bad at team sports won't be picked for teams. They're constantly the ones being picked last or left sitting on the sidelines. They're not included in matches or games because they're not good enough, so they miss out on friendships and the social aspect of it.

Of course it's okay not to be good at everything, but there's a culture in team sports which means people are aren't good enough are bullied and excluded, and that isn't something that happens in other activities.

I have one child who is very sporty. First X1 Cricket and football, First XV rugby and played for a well known own club until he was 17. Still playing football at 26.

I have one child who is probably mildly dyspraxic who was hopeless at school sport and it severely knocked her confidence. However she likes yoga and pilates and rides and the riding is becoming more important to her. She also kept her music going, unlike ds who was also musically gifted but couldn't keep sport and music going together and sport won.

DD's principal instrument is voice You do not get to grade 8 voice and take it beyond that without strong stomach muscles and high levels of discipline.

What needs to change in schools is the attitude of sports/PE teachers who ime facilitate the marginalisation of those with no sporting talent. No other subject would allow the level of bullying that goes on in PE departments.

[quote MotionActivatedDog]@SimonJT do you worry about your son’s self esteem when it gets to the point he isn’t being progressed/selected for the team and some of his friends are? There are lots of ways to enjoy physical activity without the competitive aspect that inevitably tells some children they just aren’t good enough.[/quote]
No, there isn’t any team selection, I wouldn’t say he is friends with anyone at rugby either, his school friends aren’t into playground sport either.

@Bryonyshcmyony

Because even friendly competition encourages kids to try their best and improve. Lots of emphasis on competing against yourself not against others these days.

No, there really isn't. At my son's school, it was still dominated by team competitive sports, i.e. football and rugby. I genuinely thought it would have been different, 30 years after my crap school sports experience, but it really was just the same. Still no choices/options!

I'd love to know how many schools have adopted this new emphasis on competing against yourself not against others. What percentage? It clearly hadn't reached my son's school.

Back in my day, it was O/A level years when you started getting choices/options. The first 3 years are pretty much no choice at all. That's exactly how it was for my son over the past few years. Really, nothing has changed!

@RosesAndHellebores What needs to change in schools is the attitude of sports/PE teachers who ime facilitate the marginalisation of those with no sporting talent. No other subject would allow the level of bullying that goes on in PE departments.

I fully agree. Far too many games teachers who are obsessed about their school's teams in inter-school competitions, so concentrate all their efforts on the competitive teams. It's bad enough that non sporty pupils suffer bullying etc from other pupils, but to suffer it from teachers is completely unacceptable, and yet, it somehow is accepted!

Team sports don't work for most people regarding fitness because if you're not good enough to be in the team, you don't get to play. End of.

Most team sports select the best players and once kids get to be about 11 or so the rest drop out. A football team who doesn't pick the best players available will get slaughtered at every match, the kids who can will defect to better teams and there will be insufficient numbers for the "inclusive" team to continue. I've seen it happen.

So yeah competitive team sport is great for confidence, character building etc. For the few who can play. For most kids it doesn't work and they are better off doing general fitness or individual sports.

Thank you @Kazzyhoward. Rereading my post it strikes me that there is no funded alternative activity except sport in state schools. That is something of a tragedy. DD was lucky because her 6th form offered pilates and yoga. Her singing teacher, however, was peripatetic and paid for and both the DC had music lessons from about 6 or 7. Notably dd's voice also developed because she did her RSCM exams through church which whilst free required parental availability for practices and services.

There were dc in their leafy cofe school who could not have lessons because they couldn't afford to hire the instrument when there were not enough to go round or pay the peripatetic teacher. Extra football club with a local team was about £2 per week; instrumental tuition was more like £12.50pw.

It's not just the best that get to play in many situations though. Our school fields 5 teams per year group until sixth form. While my son loves playing for the first team, his friends apparently really enjoy playing in the lower teams as it's more fun and less serious. Our football club also put out 4 teams per age group, our hockey club and cricket club have performance and development teams.

Team sports can be enjoyable for less sporty kids provided they're in a team with kids of their standard.

In terms of self esteem suffering if your child isn't selected for a team, it's not necessarily a bad thing being dropped. My older son was dropped from the rugby A team as his tackling wasn't good enough. He played in the Bs, worked hard to improve this area and ended up being the only player from the As to make it into the As at secondary school.

This term he's been dropped from the school first team at one sport. He's been resilient enough to understand that other players were performing better than him and that's life. It hasn't led to a crisis of confidence but he is thinking about focusing on his other two sports next year and freeing up that season for his A level revision.

@kin432 what a sensible post. Rejection/not meeting the grade is a part of life for the majority of the population. Learning how to deal with it without being completely crushed is such an important lesson for teenagers to learn, as they move into adulthood.

At 13, I am guessing the majority of the kids will already have been playing in some form for the best part of a decade. To win a starting place in that team will require graft outside of the club environment.

@Bryonyshcmyony

Because even friendly competition encourages kids to try their best and improve. Lots of emphasis on competing against yourself not against others these days.

I disagree with this. Some people are just not competitive by nature. A child who is a bit overweight or has been bullied or maybe has dyspraxia and isn't great at ball skills is unlikely to enjoy "friendly competition", it'll just become something to dread.

I'm not competitive, I never have been, I'm just not interested. I didn't like friendly competition at school and it didn't encourage me to try my best and improve. However I do love being active. When I was older I joined a social running club and realised that I loved running especially if there's someone to chat to. Some of the group were quite competitive, some not, but there was no requirement to race and many never bothered - those who did were usually far more interested in chasing their own PB than beating anyone else's.

I think sometimes, the problem with pe teachers is that they, obviously, were good at sport and probably were on teams all the way through. Idon't think they always get that some kids aren't good at/ don't enjoy sport or don't want to be in teams.
Kids in teams tend to have a collective sense of worth and that they are better than others. Ds has a phenomenal vocabulary and impressive grasp of structure and plot when writing. But who gives a shit? He's not part of any teams, so is tolerated by the other lads in his class but also looked down on cos of his lack of football ability.

I'm also not convinced kids who are good at sport work hard in their other subjects. Sometimes it's quite the opposite. Especially those who think they're going to make a career out of it.