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.

Being late to football is a tricky one. So many kids have played from such a young age that it can be hard to join in late. I'd encourage your DS to try another sport rather than writing off sport entirely.

My DD does two different sporting activities a week - gymnastics and swimming. She loves both but we have in no way pushed any competitiveness on her. We want her to enjoy it and be active. If she excels at one or both, we’ll nurture and support that as much as she wants but I’d rather she was happy. She doesn’t particularly excel in either and I couldn’t care less.

My DC are involved in swimming, one at a high level, and they have fantastic camaraderie and fitness from the sport. However, DD has found team sports that she has tried very serious and competitive and not much fun. DS is only 6 but finds it all very stressful so our experiences aren't great yet, perhaps we've still got to find their thing team sport wise.
Delivered well sport is great but not every child loves it. I certainly didn't as a kid and I am neither obese or lacking in any other major way!

I will say though that football causes massive issues for us at break and lunch in my primary school. Some of the children get hugely competitive but don’t accept that other children playing just want to have fun. Some are rude to the ‘ref’ (a teacher/TA/MDSA who happens to be on duty with no particular football knowledge) if they disagree with a decision. We’ve had to ban specific children or whole year groups from playing it and then their parents kick off about the injustice of their child, who has been given several warnings and multiple chances, not being allowed to play football. It’s a nightmare.

It's horses for courses though surely?

Some DC are not blessed academically, and sometimes sport is where they can shine and gain self esteem and make friends among their peers. (And those saying sports day is humiliating for some DC, well the same can be said of exam results day for the non-academic. Not everyone is the same.)

And it's good for DC to learn to work as a team, to learn about other people's different strengths and weaknesses, about losing gracefully and sticking to rules, about trying your best and being self disciplined.

Of course organised sport ^can^ be toxic but you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater if you dismiss it entirely. Exercising can have huge mental health benefits, and playing sport as part of a team can be a supportive experience as well as a negative one, especially for boys, teenage lads and men who may find mh issues difficult to talk about. A good sports teacher or coach can often identify a problem that a child is having on the sports field and nine times out of ten it will be replicated in the classroom or in RL. Or vice versa.

As an aside, any issues with "over- enthusiastic" parents should be dealt with very firmly and swiftly stamped on by the school coach, or members of the team's management body. Penalties need to be enforced (sadly). There should be absolute zero tolerance for any displays of inappropriate, ridiculous or unsporting behaviour by spectators. The ethos of a team always trickles down from the top and team members will take their cue as to how they are expected to behave from their coach and the team management. And if they aren't doing their jobs properly , usually the esprit de corps will suffer.

I think in general organised sport and physical exercise is of more benefit than otherwise, but sometimes the competitive aspect can take over too much, making it considerably less enjoyable for the less able.

A wider range of physical activities would benefit more people, I believe.

I work in a hospital and I always tell anyone with a sports related injury that sport is bad for them!
Seriously though...i was shite at sport and sent to a sport school for some bizarre reason ...it was awful!
Other peoplecthough thrive on it. Pe teachers really do need to orgsnise physical activities like yoga/ pilates/ for non competetive kids.

@Lillyhatesjaz

I think team sports are brilliant for some children but not for all. I think that PE lessons should offer non competitive alternatives for children who are less sporty. Things like dance type fitness or spin bikes or yoga,or step. Children who are not good at sport would be more likely to enjoy physical activity without the competitive element. No one is going to accuse you of letting them down if you are bad at zumba.

I really agree with this. I hated PE at school, I was only slightly overweight but nobody else in my class was so I felt very awkward and out of place and the only team sport I enjoyed was football. However I have always loved any type of fitness class and at that age I'd have loved aerobics and would have been good at it which is much more confidence-building than being picked last for netball.

If hes 13 and only just looking to join a club he will be a sub, hes most likely competing with children with around 5+ years of experience.

I love sport, I started playing rugby at the same age as your son, I was crap for the first 18 months but our coach kept going and kept encouraging me.

I went on to play professionally, I still do, but in a much lower leauge due to no longer playing fulltime.

You can’t expect to start a skill at 13 and to be quickly promoted to a first team, it takes a lot of time and effort.

My son was overweight in early teens and bullied by a few people but he desperately wanted to play football. When he grew taller and slimmed down a bit a new team started my friend spoke to the coach and he gave him a trial on his own . Some of the players who knew him from school thought he would be useless and did quite nasty things like dropping him out of their online group but he persevered. Coach made sure he got some gameplay and eventually he won them round and became part of the group. He never missed a game or practice even if he only played for a few minutes and I made sure I always watched . The look on his face when he was awarded “Clubman of the Year “ was priceless . His confidence soared . That coach changed his life and I will always be grateful.

I think it depends on the child and the school.

I really liked that on DS1s (state) primary school prospectus they put an emphasis on still doing competitive sports - DS1 is very confident and bright, I thought it would do him good to occasionally lose at stuff to other kids/not always pick things up straight away.

(They do non competitive PE too, they just did a term of dance.)

The OPs experience might not be universal, but it certainly was mine. The effects of bullying PE teachers turned me off sport ( and exercise) complete as a child. It was only when I discovered individual sport away from school that I reversed this.

I could say it was just my experience, however I was shocked when I ended up supporting a school sports day recently to be on the receiving end from just the same, esteem destroying, sarcastic comments from the PE staff as I got as a child! I am 45 and was there in a professional capacity FFS. Made me sad that nothing has really changed

@DonLewis loved your post, we are a hockey playing house too and have found the hockey community to be welcoming, inclusive and encouraging.

Football does seem to be the most highly emotionally charged of the team sports and something we actively avoided.

Agree with another couple of posters that junior parkrun (and 5k parkrun) are a great way to encourage being active, provide real goals and buzz of achievement without the pressure of team.

YABU - what do you suggest instead then to get kids out doing physical exercise, building team work and improving their skills in sports?

Improving sports skills is hardly essential. I can honestly say I've done fine in life despite never developing discernible skills in recognised sports. Children won't get exercise by being forced into something they don't enjoy, and team work skills can be built up in all sorts of ways.

I kind of know where you are coming from, I know someone who ended up having a tough time due to their overcompetative dad who wanted them to play football professionally.

But overall I think YABU.

From when did you form these opinions.

I watched the wheelchair football and Cerebral Palsy football matches yesterday and those lot are savage and hard as nails. So much better to watch than mainstream football as well

My daughter has recently joined a Cerbral Palsy football team and the coaches and staff are absolutely wonderful. The patience and care shown to each child (so with very different abilities) brings a tear to the eye.

However, I agree with PPs that organised team sports in a school setting can put children off physical activity for life. I hated the team sports we were made to play at school and assumed that because I was no good/didn't enjoy it that any physical activity wasn't for me. It wasn't until I was in my 30s that I found activity that I enjoyed and stuck at and I really regret the wasted time.

Physical activity for children needs to be treated as fundamental as English and Maths with alternatives to standard team sports offered at school.

I have two DS, one sporty, the other not.

Sporty child - sport is probably the most important thing for his mental health. He's a high achiever, academically, and puts himself under a huge amount of pressure. Sport allows him to throw his competitive nature into something fun. It has been fantastic for his social skills. He found lockdown, with no organised sport, incredibly hard.

DS2, without a competitive bone in his body, and never been the most physically able, since he was a toddler, still plays a sport once a week, but in a social group at his level. His school set for sport, and he is in the second from bottom set. And he bloody loves it! Rounders instead of cricket. Frisbee instead of rugby.

If organised sport is organised correctly, children are competing against equal peers, and the parents and teachers respect the level of each child, then it is the best thing in the world.

@Whoarethewho

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

No - we need exercise that’s fun for children which they want to and which they’ll continue to do when they leave school . Not the sort of organised sport OP refers to

It is a bit disingenuous to object to the OP on the grounds of the obesity crisis. The elitist nature of sport itself must play a role in levels of obesity.

People that are crap at sport get just as much out of team sports as those that are really good. There are only so many rejections you can take before you stop putting yourself in that position.

Schools would find it totally unacceptable to withdraw the offer of Maths to students that are rubbish at it. Even more unacceptable to highlight a deficiency in Maths amongst someone's peers. It is totally acceptable to do both of those for sport.

My DC have mild mobility problems, but there are no teaching assistants or adaptations for PE. DD loves football, but she is unlikely to ever be good at it. It is really upsetting for her, wondering how long she will be tolerated in the lunch time football club (at primary school).

I’m a bit the same, OP - it dates back to sadistic PE teachers at school, freezing bloody cold hockey pitches, when all you could wear was a little skirt thing, changing rooms stinking of sweat, etc. I even dislike the words ‘sport’ and (ugh) ‘sporty’.

But having said that, I was pleased for dds to try any they enjoyed, and pleased again if they were good at them - I did my best not to influence them.

It’s exercise that’s good for us, not necessarily “sport”. Kids need exercise definitely, they don’t have to be in organised sport for that. Schools could concentrate less on competitive sports and focus more on fun exercise. Encouraging kids to try lots of different activities is more likely to help them find enjoyment in physical exercise.

As for kids footie clubs and the like, yuck! We stay the hell away from those toxic environments. And we have a ds who is pretty reasonable at sport! He does park run (it’s not a race, he’s competing against himself to better his times), mountain biking and trampolining.

I get where you are coming from OP, yanbu. However it’s about finding a way for kids to enjoy exercise.

My kids are both ‘B team heroes’ so like playing sport and get involved and always up for a kick about, but definitely not the best players. They both get a lot out of it. For DD in particular, she now has a very diverse friendship group and is not reliant on school for friends, and I have found it limits ‘mean girl’ behaviour as the dynamics of each group is different- the school Queen Bee is usually not also the rugby or gymnastics Queen Bee, especially when the age groups for sport span more than one school year. The netball age groupings cover 2 years and the older girls really mentor and encourage the younger ones.

Maybe we’ve been lucky- the clubs they go to are very encouraging and there are often kids coming in new to the sport at quite late ages. I think soccer is the one where that’s more difficult because it seems to be an outlier in terms of how much kids train at an early age.

In rugby, clubs get fined if parents are dicks to the refs or kids.

At school there is no team picking- they unofficially stream by putting the kids who play outside school together and then the kids who don’t together so people can play at their own level.

The trouble is @MissyB1, that team sport is one of the best ways for children to exercise, they don't even realise they are exercising, they are having fun and being part of a team. You can push yourself much harder when you are playing as part of a team and training means that you are 'exercising' with your friends.

There are people of all abilities that can get so much out of it.

Obviously there are massive benefits to physical activity and sport can be a massive part of that, but it can go horribly wrong as described. I was put off doing any activity by poor PE teaching at school, which just seemed like ritual humiliation to me. I struggle to motivate myself to exercise now and I wish we had done less competitive things. Even something like high jump, though not a team sport, seems pointless and potentially damaging. I can remember being totally unable to do it and would run up and just stop, which was obviously embarrassing. Why did I need to do that though? Surely there are better activities that are easier to succeed at that are more like to promote a love of physical activity - like dance/zumba etc.

Ds1 plays cricket in a team and has struggled with the parents to be honest. When he was captain he got loads of hassle from pushy parents, and now someone else is, their dad, who is also coach, just let his own dc and small number of others dominate every game. It got ridiculous and we were spending hours at places just for ds and others to neither bat nor bowl, at all. A few other parents spoke out and it's a bit better now, but it shows it does bring out the worst in some people. Not all, but some. Then we are told how grateful we need to be to these volunteers. Yes, I appreciate it wouldn't run without them but they should be able to do it in a fair way otherwise it becomes totally toxic and you begin to question the worth of it carrying on for the majority of the kids. Now he's old enough to play for the 4ths, which has a mix of adults, older kids and kids his own age and he says he is enjoying it more than ever as there are no pushy parents and he has found everyone really supportive. No doubt kids' teams can be a nightmare due to the attitudes of some parents.

And it's not just adults who can be awful. I think the kids at cricket have all been fine, though because his club is quite successful lots of private school boys with no links to the area have joined and aren't particularly friendly. That takes away the joy as well - when they are winning and these kids don't give a toss about the club itself. That's a problem with our club though, and not a universal one I know. Ds was also put off playing football at primary school because one of the older kids was allowed to coach and was utterly nasty and hyper-critical. As I said, it can bring out the worst in people and, while that can be managed and isn't a universal thing, it's annoying the way people harp on as if sport is an unfailing force for good that makes everyone resilient and caring and team-focussed and that simply isn't necessarily the case.

As a teacher, I also get irritated at the obsession with sport at school and rewards etc being dominated by those who have done well at sport and every other achievement more or less ignored. Our rewards system has a function where PE teachers can award 50 point, yet everyone else can award a maximum of 5 at any one time! Why can't I recognise an extraordinary essay/ expressive reading etc now and again? Why is it only sport that can be worthy of such a reward? And, yes, I have complained. I appreciate it's not like that everywhere, but it can be and it does more harm than good for those who aren't naturally sporty in terms of promoting a love of exercise.

When dd was at state school they rotated sports every half term. She hated the zumba and yoga terms - sexist too, as the boys did martial arts and running for their non team sports. Some girls really enjoyed them. It seemed intrinsically wrong to me to clip a sporty girl's wings in this way so we moved her to private school where she can play football and do athletics and swim every single day and slob around in her pe kit as much as she wants. I feel for state school PE teachers, dd said every lesson was half taken up with the kids that didn't want to do it/ the parents emailing saying that they didn't have to /forgetting their pe kit/just refusing to join in. Must be an absolute nightmare for the teachers. Sport everyday at the private school and you are just expected to do it so they do.