Children should be encouraged to stay in sport?

[pontipinemum]

I'm not saying 'everyone gets a medal' sort of situation. But everything should be done to encourage kids to stay in sport, I think the stat's for girls are even worse.

I am just remembering back to when I stopped going to a proper running/ athletics club, it was a really good club with several people that either made team GB or got well on at national level. The coach left a voice mail on our landline that I heard. I was 13yrs old. She said something along the lines of 'pontipine is useless, she will never win anything, she is too slow." it was a very nasty message.

Apparently the coach thought I was talking about her behind her back or that's what I heard from someone else anyway. I didn't talk about her behind her back!

I never went back I was too embarrassed. I knew I was never going to be amazing but I was OK and I enjoyed it. Now I am not saying that event changed the trajectory of my life but I never went back to running

YABU - If kids are bad tell them
YANBU - Encourage them to keep it up regardless

This. We need more emphasis on physical activity outside a competitive sporting context. Honestly, I don't think sport is entirely healthy. Exercise is healthy, but pushing yourself until some part of your body literally breaks?

imho, "sport" = competitive by definition.

You can practice a physical activity for pleasure, hobby or fun, but shouldn't call it "doing sport" if there's no competitive element.

@doingitforyorkshire I agree it's about finding the right club but if you are like me and live rurally there's absolutely no choice. We have one running club, one swimming club, one hockey club etc.

I worked in sports development for some years and stories about how unwelcoming some clubs can be are common. Especially to less able people, or people who in some way don't fit their clique.

Because organising things for adults is multiple times easier than organising the same for kids. With kids you need to worry about supervision ratios, safeguarding, age groupings etc. Often adult provision is set up by someone who wants to do that themselves- my friend set up a fun 5 a side soccer league in London. All he did was hire the pitches, send the captains the fixtures and tally the results. You can’t do that with kids. The level of input would be so much higher.

I think sport for children is incredibly important. Both for physical and mental wellbeing. I strongly encourage it among my children and if they look like they're giving up for no good reason as they approach the teenage years, I'll take a fairly hard stance. By that I mean, they won't be substituting it with social media, youtube or video games. And team sports teach so many valuable life skills.

I'm a teacher and run an after school club every week for no pay and usually no thanks either, whilst paying for my own children to be in childcare. That's me doing my bit. But I was talking about professionally run clubs. Some gymnastics academies for example run recreational groups for beginners age 8+ or 13+ and some just don't so if you're a 14 year old who fancies trying it for fun and fitness your options are limited. Clubs will do what is commercially viable though, so I'm not sure what the answer is.

It can be competitive at a club level - competing against each other etc on a weekly basis. It doesn't necessarily need to go beyond that.

I think there isn’t enough money in sport generally so what is there is targeted towards goal oriented training. So adults who can organise themselves can participate in self run groups at all levels, but teenagers relying on a structured club etc there isn’t enough provision for.

I have a child that does elite level
gymnastics training. They train 5 days per week, which is very demanding, but there is no in between - it’s either one hour session recreational or hours and hours of competitive. Many of the coaches are unpaid or marginally paid ex gymnasts.

I think it’s strange how with children they are often only encouraged to do a sport if they are good at it, will make the team etc. if you aren’t good at it then you have somehow ‘failed’ As adults it’s more acceptable to do sports just for the hell of it, I’ve run my whole adult life without ever thinking I would win anything or seriously compete but I do it because I enjoy it.

My oldest dd does a sport she really enjoys but she’s not very good at and I feel the exasperation from her instructor during lessons, sometimes I think they are wondering why she still comes to the classes but she just enjoys taking part. My other dd does a sport which she has a huge natural talent for and could compete seriously if she wanted to but she doesn’t, she likes going to classes, practices all the time and enjoys her own personal accomplishments in the sport but doesn’t ever want to compete and her coaches seem to have a very hard time understanding that!

If it was more acceptable for kids to be able to just enjoy sport for the sake of it then I think a lot more would keep doing it.

Of course "sport" involves competing, we know the definition. It would be no fun if you didn't play against another team/person! It is still "sport" regardless of ability, I absolutely do think children should be encouraged enough to do sport for fun - it has so many life long development and wellbeing positives.

Keep the serious competition for elite sports groups and sort out the amateur side so coaches cannot just irresponsibly dump kids, not caring about the damage they do, who have played with a team for 6-7 years because someone else comes along who is just a tiny bit better and coach fancies a change.

Agree.

School PE is shit, the work I've had to put in to undo the negative messages.
Sports clubs can be quite toxic.

Exercise is important, but sport is often quite unenjoyable.

I don’t think the answer to wider participation in team sports is more mixed ability teams- the kids quickly work out who the weak links are and it’s horrible for them.

The answer must therefore be more teams. The problem there is that there are only so many coaches/ referees, the vast majority of whom are volunteers. To field more teams requires more coaches/ referees than there are. It also requires numbers across a geographic area which is often lacking. It’s often the case that clubs have too many for one team but getting numbers for two is really difficult. Also, I think commitment tends to be lower in the less competitive teams, which is kind of understandable but at the same time, if you want to have a fun league you need to show up just as much as the competitive league or matches keep getting forfeited/ played with skeleton teams.

I don’t think the answer to wider participation in team sports is more mixed ability teams- the kids quickly work out who the weak links are and it’s horrible for them.
I agree there. As a very slow runner, I hated the group events because I was always aware of letting the team down. I don't think anyone ever said that to me, but I knew that.

In my dc's secondary they streamed for PE. My dds were far happier once in the lowest stream where they could have fun without feeling they were letting people down, than in the mixed one. PE went from being a lesson they dreaded to one they enjoyed.

This thread is an actual competition in whinging.
Stop moaning and do something about it instead.

btw,
if you have matches then you have winners and losers.
If you have "a league" then you'll still have winners and losers.
Most "sports" won't be fun if you don't make them competitive. So you want to find a way to make the competition fun.

Also, those of you who think dance is not pressured, are you nuts. I'm saying that as the teenager with poor sense of rhythm who looked terrible at the (filmed) recital because I kept moving out of sync with everyone else. So embarrassing. I'd rather come dead last in a race than ever again be so obviously publicly terrible at a dance recital <shudder>.

You need to think about how to design the "play for fun league" entirely differently. For instance, a footie side could train regularly together but when they go to a match, the 2 sides are always mixed. Nominated captains could take turn picking players from either side, throw on coloured vests, play as competitively as they like but there is no actual "league": just a competitive match for fun. The weak players will still get less ball time, but every one should get a look in most weeks. End of the league season everyone would be invited to vote for 3 especially impressive / most-valuable players NOT on their own side. So those good players can be celebrated, but still have an inclusive for-fun league.

Similarly, with individual sports, you could have handicapped races: eg., slowest runner goes off first, fastest (documented) runner goes off last. The only possible "winner" is the person who improved their PB most over the distance that day, and over the season.

I have literally no skin in this game but at least I have offered wildly more ideas what a successful alternative "sport experience" could be like, than most PP.

So crack on with it gals. I look forward to hearing all about your creative efforts in the news in coming years. Won't that be funner achievement than I swear moaning is the number one favourite British sport pastime moaning on Mumsnet?

My dc’s school has Wednesday matches every week ( during school time so participation is mandatory). They typically field A-C teams so kids play against their own standard. It’s been great for ds as he wanted to change from outfield to hockey goalie so was c team goalie this season and learned loads- he started clueless and ended the season quite good- whereas if he’d had to be A team goalie with county players aiming shots at his head he’d probably just have PTSD 🤣.

I do think the way to improve depth of sports participation in state schools is regular fixtures during school time but there’s just not the timetable space for it, and in many cases the facilities. The girls grammar where we are has 180 in a year but only fields 2 netball teams so you’ve got to be in the top 10% to get a match. At my dc’s school literally everyone plays.

whereas if he’d had to be A team goalie with county players aiming shots at his head he’d probably just have PTSD 🤣.

😂😂

Absolutely agree with this.

It should also apply to school PE. If it had then I might not have hated it with the vengeance that I did and might have exercised much more. Instead, the focus on competitive team sports with little understanding for those not that way inclined put me off it for decades.

Encouraged, yes
Forced, no

I agree with that too.

@2reefsin30knots I suddenly remembered this thread and wondered if you/DS are at the Eric Twinames this weekend? My DS is there with my DW.

Exercise needs to be consistent and fun for kids to enjoy it. Heck, for adults to enjoy it.

It's bloody baffling that all children are put through the competitive/technical aspects of sport when these have nothing to do with the main benefits.

Even encouraging kids to reflect on their aerobic capacity, their endorphin rush after exercise etc is totally missed out.

Nobody had forgotten their PE kit if the lesson was dodgeball.

Yes! My kids love dodgeball.

@PhotoDad no, DS decided he didn't want to go because there wasn't enough wind, so I was spared the long drive!! DS is really too big now for the boat he did RTG in. He's off into a different fleet in the autumn.

@PhotoDad posted too soon- meant to say hope your DS has enjoyed his ice cream token at the ET atmosphere! I was watching the windsurfers on the webcam on day 1... looked a bit painful!! Hope the other days were more fun!

@2reefsin30knots Wind was apparently awful on Saturday, but both yesterday and today it was 10 gusting 15. His last ET as he's about to age out of Regional Training Group, but he finished in style by winning his class!