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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To loathe organised sport and what it does to children?

396 replies

AssemblySquare · 24/07/2021 23:29

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.

OP posts:
TheMoth · 25/07/2021 15:19

Maybe pe should be more focused on habits and skills for long term fitness- just like other subjects have to. Most kids who want to play football play it everywhere. By the time they get to high school, the only kids who can't are those who don't want to anyway.

How many of us were just sent out to run round a field a couple of times a year, rather than being actually taught? How many of us thought we couldn't run before c25k and are now regularly running long distances for fun? No need to commit to a time and a place; no fees; not much equipment. Just go.

Totally agree with pilates. Balance, strength, posture.

Both of which could be taken into adulthood

Rege · 25/07/2021 15:19

Perhaps the difference in adult sport and kids sports can be explained as - In kids sport, you are doing it for the glory of the school or team. Adult sport I.e pottery, art, kung fu, you’re doing it for yourself.

GalacticDragonfly · 25/07/2021 15:28

Adults tend to pay for their own activities and will stop doing that if the instructor is rude or unpleasant to them or encourages them to be bullied. Children don’t tend to have that power over whether the coach or teacher gets paid.

boydy99 · 25/07/2021 15:31

I was a competitive swimmer for about 14 years from age 8. It was mixed but overall good. Mostly independent events but trained as a team and competed in relays as teams. I had a few excellent coaches but one in particular was a real bully and was still huge negative influence over my time in the sport. If he was still coaching, I'd report him. it's only as I've got older than I've realised what he did was not OK and the club shouldn't have allowed it, but they did because they didnt have anyone else to take the sessions and some parents absolutely loved him, thought he could do no wrong (their kids were the favourites).

I hated PE though unless it was swimming, even then the PE teachers used to set up the good swimmers to fail, seems like they couldn't cope having a student being better at a sport than themselves! the popular kids who were good at football, rugby, running etc, were encouraged and supported, always got to pick teams etc, those of us who weren't good at those were always shamed and picked last, it was absolutely awful. there was no allowance for that fact that everyone is different/good at or enjoy different sports. PE was the worst, made worse by the teachers imo. bullying, shouty awful teachers. NE Scotland 2005-2011.

SamusIsAGirl · 25/07/2021 15:47

I can raise you bad swimming provision with no swimming provision for the entire 5 years (1990-1995) except for.......the elite swimmers that were already competing in competitions from primary school!

A completely arse-backwards way of sport provision - only providing to capable people and not to many whom really needed it as a survival skill.

Klippetyklip · 25/07/2021 15:48

I loathed all school sports, except swimming. Now in my 50’s I find all sports incredibly boring to watch (I have not taken part in any sporting activities since school). I really can’t see the point personally, though can understand why some people enjoy sports. My son is the same. I did encourage him when younger and he tried different activities I.e martial arts etc, but now he’s an adult he has zero interest. He does exercise as he knows he has to, but doesn’t enjoy it. We both prefer walking.

AChickenCalledDaal · 25/07/2021 15:49

I learned team spirit when I was in a close harmony singing group, one to a part, so every voice mattered and being unprepared let the side down.

I learned resilience when participating in the Duke of Edinburgh's award, particularly when hiking through the torrential rain, when giving up wasn't an option.

I learned to conquer fear on a stage.

I learned the value of perseverance and practice when I passed my grade 8 piano by the skin of my teeth.

I learned tolerance and respect in the Guides, working with my small patrol of very different characters.

I honestly cannot articulate anything positive I learned through organised sport, until at the age of 16 I learned that I found badminton a bit more tolerable than hockey.

throwa · 25/07/2021 15:57

There will be a sport for each child - you just have to find the right one. My boy loves any form of team sport with a ball - he is good at one, adequate at others, and absolutely shite at the rest! But he really enjoys them all, even the ones he is 'less good' at. School PE is fantastic for him.

My daughter loathes any form of team sport, and school PE is horrendous for her. However - give her an individual sport e.g. swimming, cycling, climbing, horse riding etc and she is in her element and will do it all day long.

Both do at least an hour of their sports a day, over the course of the week and are equally fit.

The 'traditional' ways of doing school PE may have to change, already schools do dance, aerobics, yoga etc which appeal to many more people than the traditional rugby, cross country running etc but which will still keep them active.

igelkott2021 · 25/07/2021 16:13

Agree, but crappy Igel should equally get a detention for the eye rolls/sulky face/pretending to be sick and other methods of sabotaging their teachers work and their class mates participation in something they like

I didn't do any of that. Well I eye rolled when I had to wear shorts and t-shirt outside in the winter and the PE teacher was all wrapped up in a tracksuit and a coat! But nobody will be traumatised by bored or cheeky kids eye-rolling whereas facilitating bullying does traumatise kids.

Actually I enjoyed some team sports like rounders even though I wasn't much cop at it.

And a lot of kids wouldn't be rubbish if someone took the time to teach them. Someone mentioned being told to run around a field. Nobody ever taught me how to run a 5k or even a 1500m. Now I regularly run and have even won the odd prize at a race.

TheMoth · 25/07/2021 16:22

Yes, learning how to actually run, was a revelation. I realised I didn't have to get out of breath, twist my ankle or get a stitch. You would not have got me running in the dark, in -2 degrees in a school pe skirt and knickers. But the app, by starting off small, gave me the the 'I can do it' feeling that's addictive.

Imagine starting off in yr7 by teaching the basic skills of not dying while exercising, so it wasn't painful from the start.c2k fits nicely into the 30 actual minutes you'd have for pe. Then the other lesson (assuming 2 lessons a week) could be strength based or team sports.

Oblomov21 · 25/07/2021 16:25

"I do blame them for mocking me loudly in front of my classmates, for telling me I was useless, for telling me if I didn’t stay fit and healthy I’d never have babies, and for numerous other similar things."

Some posters bullying from the 80's etc are overshadowing their parenting duties. If you've been badly bullied presumably you've had counselling since?

Is the above something that has been said recently? Nope, thought not. Because there'd be a huge complaint to the parent governors these days.

GalacticDragonfly · 25/07/2021 16:32

@TheMoth

Yes, learning how to actually run, was a revelation. I realised I didn't have to get out of breath, twist my ankle or get a stitch. You would not have got me running in the dark, in -2 degrees in a school pe skirt and knickers. But the app, by starting off small, gave me the the 'I can do it' feeling that's addictive.

Imagine starting off in yr7 by teaching the basic skills of not dying while exercising, so it wasn't painful from the start.c2k fits nicely into the 30 actual minutes you'd have for pe. Then the other lesson (assuming 2 lessons a week) could be strength based or team sports.

This would be brilliant, especially if the goal was to get everyone to complete Cto5k at the progression that’s right for them, so anyone who struggled got more help, support and time rather than less.
ImInStealthMode · 25/07/2021 16:39

I agree to an extent. School sport put me off team sports for life; or in fact any sport that requires more than one person (so tennis, badminton etc are out for me too). Too many awful memories.

Even in athletics track & field sports or swimming it was always focused on the best / fastest / fittest pupil making those not so accomplished feel shit.

I do think that sport and activity are really important for mental and physical health though, it just needs a change of approach and focus on individual achievement (ie: YOUR run was 10 seconds faster than YOUR time last week, amazing!) rather than simple 'first and last' and making comparisons between participants. A PP mentioned PE at their school being broken down into sets; also a great idea IMO.

BiBabbles · 25/07/2021 16:40

As others said, sports a neutral that tends to absorb the attitudes and values around it and sometimes those attitudes are terrible and not everyone can access better than what is in their community. It can't be universally applied, but that doesn't mean it isn't an issue for many children so I don't think it's unreasonable to loathe what it's doing for your DS or others.

On the flip of that, I think one of the value issues is effortless excellence and things in certain areas only being "worthwhile" when we can maintain that facade and this can be reflected both in parents' attitudes towards it and in schools where PE and or similar subjects treated in a same way like vocals in music or many things in art where it's too often 'go do' and kids are often blamed for not being naturally picking things up things that should be broken down far more into skills to bring together. As others have said, the revelation of actually learning these skills as an adult can do wonders, but it's an issue that that's what it takes.

As was said, no one first starting is going to be excellent against people who've had years of experience. I remember my first year in wrestling - my nickname was Miss Worthless (and that was nice for wrestlers), I could have used more breaking down of certain skills, but a good chunk of it was excepting I wasn't going to be good for a while and that I'd always had a disadvantage with those with more experience let alone a biological advantage the guys had.

There are various ways this could be handled that could improve things for more kids, some have already given suggestions for this specific case, but with how much schools and many volunteer organizations are stretched, there isn't an easy solution there on scale. I mean, that it's well-written now that late KS2 and into KS3 kids - particularly girls who have a greater shift in centre of gravity and are more likely to be injured at that age partially because of that - need more skill training, need more things broken down in components to work on before bringing them together, but too often it's "easier" to chuck them all into some game to "go do". That is a values issue too - and it's not valuing our kids and their health.

And lastly, had those kids who hated PE absolutely no responsibility to themselves to just get in with it? Because it smacks of it being everyone else’s fault but their own.

I think, when kids are concerned, we as the adults have the responsibility to ask and find out why. There is little benefit is just telling a child 'you should try harder' or calling an adult 'triggered' for having a complaint.

When I was 12, I was a smart ass in PE and refused to run the warm-up. I walked. I would quote my mother who would say "I'm only running if there is a man behind me with a gun". Eventually, the others were moved on and the boys' PE teacher actually walked with me during my extra assigned laps and we talked about what I had said, we compared scars, my clicky knee, and so on. He was very no bullshit, made me take responsibility for my choices and would tear apart anything that sounded like an excuse, but he also built rapport with me and didn't write me off for not just 'getting in with it' or being 'one of the counselor's kids' (as he wasn't even my teacher, I'm not even sure if he was aware of that - and I didn't care if others won, I was happy to cheer them on, I just didn't see the point in doing it myself when all the effort to be at the top never protected me. It was logical to child me).

He one of very very few teachers I had at that age that helped me feel like my limitations were workable, that they weren't just something that made me a fuck-up they barely put up with while they had to.

It was teachers like him that helped me get into lifting and wrestling. I couldn't have 'taken responsibility' without a teacher like him because child-me didn't have the skills or well-being to do that. You might view it as blaming everyone else, I view it as a developmental issue and a social values issue - he was having to counteract so many other values represented by other adults, peers, and the environment and my developmental limits on seeing beyond my "normal". In some spaces, it's 'only those who win matter' which puts many off. I didn't have that, I didn't think I mattered either way and so put my energy in just what I needed to survive (if that at times). That kinda turned into a strength for me, but I needed guidance to do that. I couldn't have pulled that out of my arse as a child, because I was a bloody child (literally and figuratively).

Wearywithteens · 25/07/2021 16:50

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn at the poster's request.

Hdhdjejdj · 25/07/2021 16:56

The idea that sport people are all much more resilient than others is not always true. Just read any autobiography of a top achieving sports person and chances are they have suffered with their mental health. Alcoholism, marriage breakdowns, gambling addictions often feature heavily.

Yuckyfinger · 25/07/2021 17:02

IMO as a child and as a parent is that many PE teachers seem to favour kids who are not neccessarily the best, but can give a reasonable performance in all sports. So they would have a small pool of kids that were chosen to be on every team because they were known to the teacher and could be relied on to put in a decent performance (I guess similarly to how the same children are chosen -at primary level- for the main speaking parts in all the assemblies or plays)
I was really good at cross country at school but crap at almost everything else. I was often overlooked for the team just because I wasnt on their radar as someone who was "sporty".

Northernparent68 · 25/07/2021 17:30

SimonJT, clearly not everyone can play sport, some people do n’t have the nerve endings that enable them to make rapid movements. Those are the kids that never touch a ball in a pe lesson. It’s not clear what benefit they gain.

Kazzyhoward · 25/07/2021 17:37

@Yuckyfinger

IMO as a child and as a parent is that many PE teachers seem to favour kids who are not neccessarily the best, but can give a reasonable performance in all sports. So they would have a small pool of kids that were chosen to be on every team because they were known to the teacher and could be relied on to put in a decent performance (I guess similarly to how the same children are chosen -at primary level- for the main speaking parts in all the assemblies or plays) I was really good at cross country at school but crap at almost everything else. I was often overlooked for the team just because I wasnt on their radar as someone who was "sporty".
That sounds like a conflict between what's best for the pupil and what's best for the team (or school if inter-school competitions). Perhaps the school sports teams should "train" separately for competitions, etc., to avoid that conflict, so that the actual lessons (for everyone) can be more inclusive.
CrazyNeighbour · 25/07/2021 17:48

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TheMoth · 25/07/2021 17:50

Can you imagine working in a school where the debate team* were the only kids allowed to speak or discuss in class? Or lessons were focused purely on debating skills? There's no way that would be allowed!

*purely hypothetical. I have never been near a school with a debate team, but I dream they exist.

CrazyNeighbour · 25/07/2021 17:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

lljkk · 25/07/2021 17:52

Some of us are lousy at both sport & performing arts. I've been mocked often for how bad I am at playing music or singing or dancing. Apparently I'm still lousy but at least less lousy after many years of dance lessons, instrument lessons, acting workshops, etc. I never had singing lessons -- I just tried hard and improved a lot (but I'm often told still dire). I still cringe at how terrible I did some dancing in a filmed school recital when I was 15.

tbh, I think I learnt a lot of resilience from both how terrible I naturally am at sport and at the arts. I've learnt a lot about enjoying the activities and being resilient in spite of no particular achievement. I learnt to ignore people openly mocking me (especially at the arts, almost never in sport).

TheMoth · 25/07/2021 17:55

Except, once I got to high school, no one gave a shit about my appalling handwriting. And kids who struggle with maths aren't humiliated in front of others. They tend to get extra help and are often pretty good at PE, so their peers don't mock them.

FuckingFabulous · 25/07/2021 18:01

5 year old had sports day this week just gone. Fucking hell, you'd think some of the parents had their life savings riding on the outcome. Screaming "GO ON ISABELLE, RUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNN!!!!" And when one little boy fell over, the dad started hollering at him to get up and another dad was screaming at his son who stopped to help his friend to "JUST GO AROUND HIM, ALFIE!!!" And not clapping the children that were given first place stickers unless it was their child! They didn't even clap their own kids when they finished the race if they didn't place in the top three. It was disgusting. A couple of the kids started crying because they were confused and overwhelmed and the head teacher ended it early- she said because of the heat but I think because of the five or so arsehole parents who were treating it like the olympics.