To withdraw my child from school sports day

[MissHoollie]

So my son age 7 has been upset for a few weeks about sports day and " always coming last"
None of us in the family are sporty and my other children " were always last " but they didn't mind at all and it almost became a family joke with them enjoying the fact it was a family tradition to be rubbish at sport
So my 7 year old is begging not to take part
We've done all the " it's fine ..someone has to be last in the races "
" You are good at other things "
" It's part of life "
But he's still loosing sleep over it all.
They've been practicing all week which is winding him up even more.
So it occurred to me , and this is where I need perspective.
Would schools parade kids out in order of best reader to worst for all the parents to applause the best reader? ,no of course not ,so why do schools do this?
Yes it's good to celebrate success but why is it so demoralising for some kids ?
Am I being unreasonable taking him out of school that day?
As I say looking for other perspectives

But the OP doesn't say the sports day is badly run or head is a bully just that her kid doesn't like coming last. If he doesn't come last at sports day, he'll likely come last or bottom at something else at some point in life - he could lose every game he plays with his friends in the playground the next day and you can't protect them from that. They will play team sports in PE which will be exactly the same for him. Pulling him out achieves nothing for his anxiety of coming last - it will just happen somewhere else.

If the sports day is super competitive and not encouraging children to take part then OP needs to speak to the school about it but having a day off so he doesn't get upset at being last is not the answer.

@Muminthebluecoat, how much chance do you realistically imagine there will be of OP's child coming last in front of a large crowd of parents plus his peers, doing something that he hates doing and can't improve? Coming last in a playground game or PE simply doesn't compare. And if it is going to happen, why does it have to be at age 7 rather than when he is more mature and has developed more coping strategies?

Me too. Time and again it seems to be used as an excuse for doing sod all to help some poor child who desperately needs a bit of support. Child has severe dyslexia? We won't bother to help him, we'll leave him sitting in class unable to do anything and being mocked by his peers because resilience. Child has massive anxiety and panic attacks in crowded areas? Crack on, force them into the noisiest, most crowded areas possible with no help at all because resilience. Based on this sort of logic, a neglectful and abusive parent could reasonably say they were just helping their child gain resilience.

Education professionals who come out with that excuse really need to be struck off.

The aim of sports day isn’t supposed to be about who wins and who comes last, it’s supposed to just be a fun day for kids to be active in the sunshine and parents to join in. I agree that it becomes competitive though, you get nobhead parents screaming their child’s name and whooping which always makes me cringe to no end.

Maybe they should reconfigure it so it isn’t about racing and is more about dressing in stupid costumes doing silly races like three legged, egg and spoon and sack races.

Poor little guy, I feel for you both.

Have you tried following his thoughts on this to see what’s specifically worrying him? Ask him - when you are both calm - searching questions like what he thinks is the worst that could happen? You might discover that he is worried about another kid laughing at him for example.

I think avoiding it isn’t going to help though as there will always be something he doesn’t want to do that he just has to. Admittedly if he doesn’t get like this about anything else then maybe this is overreacting. Is he generally a worrier?

Do whatever feels right for your boy

In front of his peers? all the time as mentioned.
In front of parents? agreed not as much but games at kids parties, swimming lessons it will happen.

Why not age 7? Plenty of 7 year old are part of sports teams and children are taught to be part of a team through the school.

My point is the issue is with how the school is running sports day - it shouldn't be super competitive with parents being involved in how other children do - it should be encouraging children to be involved, be part of a team and support each other and OP should address the issue with the school rather than just pull the kid out as that won't be an option at other times.

I can only speak from experience but in our school the kids are in all in "houses" and on sports day they compete for their "house" so my DD is in the "blue house" if she comes 1st the "blue house" gets 3 points, 2nd is 2 points. They are competing as a team with the "blue team" members from their class and other years. The house with the most points wins and the kids from that house all get a sticker.

On the day they do different events as a class so only the parents from their class are watching and I have never ever witnessed any child or parent make any comment about a child who loses.

For reference I have one DD who excels at sport and one DD who is almost always last and hates all sport.

Why should a child “just have to” do it though? What would he or anyone else actually get out of it? Who is he letting down by not doing it? What valuable function would he provide if he did?

I’m a teacher and I see how much kids hate exams. I really wish there was another way of assessing them. But until we have a better system we’re stuck with it and everyone has to go with it. Sports Day isn’t like that - it’s fun and rewarding for some, much less so for others. If you’re not enjoying something you’re supposed to enjoy, why do it?

There is a fine balance here. Many, many parents are way too overprotective of their children and protect them as much as possible from emotions such as worry, anxiety, fear etc. However, they need to learn to manage these feelings from a young age so that we may develop coping skills as we mature. There is a huge explosion of MH issues amongst teens and young adults and honestly I firmly believe some of this is down to parenting as so many kids don’t know how to deal with any thing negative. Social media is probably the biggest culprit but parenting has changed over last few decades.

On the other hand you can’t just ignore a child’s worries in order to build resilience if the child is having a really tough time. Sometimes you do just need to take a step back from it and in this case maybe skip it for this year.

Take the day off with your child, be on their side,

OMG, the team picking thing and the kids that always got picked last. Do they still do that? Can you imagine if they did that for any other subject or problem to be solved.

It is really sad to hear that so many people had such negative experiences of sports day. I remember enjoying it in junior school and I am rubbish at sport! My parents never came because of work but that was a non issue for me. I enjoyed the silly races, the tug of war and the teachers events. Likewise my children's sports days were mostly lovely events. For a couple of years early on they had quite serious races and it was the very sporty kids getting overly upset about not winning. I do remember being surprised by the poor sportsmanship of some of these kids. In later years it returned to the more fun social gathering I remember as a kid.

All this talk of resilience makes me think that we are just trapping each other into playing the game and sometimes accepting things that we don't have to, won't be the end of the world if we miss, and won't have many adverse consequences. In fact, daring to go against the script could make some people happier.

Imagine the people just born always to lose and not just sport's day, some are not academic, not sporty and suffer in so many other ways. The parent who supports her ASD daughter to escape some of this; hats off to you.

I think you're taking the word and making extreme examples. Resilience is a really useful term to mean coping with the realities of life. I wouldn't use it to describe someone who had specific needs or someone who was being bullied or abused or targeted by a mean teacher. I do mean it to describe someone whose parent steps in and solves every problem for them, like not letting them ever lose by removing them from the game.

Absolutely @OutsideLookingOut resilience is the new character building - you should do this by small setbacks in mostly positive experiences not just throwing them at things they can’t win repeatedly.

It's once a year. My dyslexic son has to do English every day. Perhaps I should keep him home every day. If you Molly coddle children they will struggle as adults
If you keep him home this year he will expect it every year. I'd pick him up after sports day and take him for an ice cream and tell him you are proud of him for doing his best. That's what I tell my DS about his English.

God I hated sports day when I was a kid. I was not sporty and I'm asthmatic. Wasn't a great combo and I just used to feel horrible. However, my DC primary now does mainly relay style races and even fun things like obstacle courses and carrying cups of water over the hurdles etc so it's all fun and no clear winners and losers. All points are for their house, not the individual. I think that'd great. Yes there are winners and losers in life, but 1) there are plenty of competitions for sporty people to get real competition and 2) if you're forcing everyone to compete then it should be fun in my opinion. Its akin to reading out the exam results in public to have kids come last in front of everyone.

Sports day isn't PE. The children who aren't sporty will still have to deal with that.

Sports day is supposed to be fun. If a child doesn't find it fun and is getting upset about it, I don't see the point of them going.

Its evident that many on this thread disagree. Sports day scarred me for life.
I've never taken up any sport, because of sports day and P.E

I personally won some, lost some. Didnt care about competing. Just hated the whole day. Hated P.E too
Was the smelly kid from the terrible home life.
I did not need the wins, I did not like the pity claps and cheers from the parents and other children when I lost. Was forced into doing at least one shitty race every year. If I had thought of it at the time in primary, I would have cut school that day. If my mother had been a better person I would have begged her to let me stay home that day.

It's an unnecessary part of school life these days. Any child with aptitude is already in a team, any child without aptitude should not be forced to compete.

Agreed Sports day isnt something he just has to do, but there are other things in life (always) that people do just have to do. Hence why I asked whether he worried about lots of things in general. If not then it’s less of an issue

Terrible experience of sports day in years 3 and 4 for us. Private school, huge sports field and facilities on site but yrs 3-8 had their sports day at a university sports athletics track. Parents were expected to take the day off, look after their kids between events, provide lunch, attempt to find shade in a non shady place, be responsible for getting their child to their events on time. The podium was cordoned off to make quite sure nobody but the winners got anywhere near. Simply not what sports day should be like for youngsters. Years 5 and 6 we were at a state primary and it was in the park, ethos so much better. Years 7-10 state secondary, no parents and a fun event

We have given up on ours. She despises it, taking part embarrassed her because she's last. I do t see what that is preparing her for long term. If I was in a job I was always embarrassed in, miles behind my colleagues- I'd be fired or quit. So nope. We do not enforce sport day here. Full participation expert Ted and given for PE but a day of physical humiliation- I'm good with doing something else.

I was one of those kids.
A life of being overweight and too anxious about being crap at sport to find any exercise I would/could do. Eventually, age 30, I stepped into a gym and actually got pretty fit and healthy. I kick myself for taking so long about it, my younger years could have been much happier. The whole culture of school PE did not help!

(back on that journey post baby+pandemic, but not scared of it this time!)

Do it once and he’ll think he can get out of everything he doesn’t like. No one likes doing things they’re bad at but you know that’s life and it builds resilience. I hated sports day but I’m glad I never got taken out of it because it taught me valuable life lessons

Didn’t teach my Dd anything. It added to mental health struggles .