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

Schools do forever parade the most clever kids around. Their worth is forever determined by how well they score in tests and for some children, reading aloud in class is their worst nightmare when they’re not as good at reading as their peers.
Sports day simply teaches a child that they can’t win everything and as you say, someone has to come last! It’s only a bit of fun and he may even enjoy it.

My Dd write suicide notes saying she was inadequate. She has spent her life masking to fit in. PE and sports day have been focused on in therapy for anorexia.Sports day is not a bit of fun for an autistic dyspraxic child.

YANBU - sports day isn't important, PE and exercise in general is, so if he's getting that then that's fine. I think sports day has the opposite effect on kids who aren't very good at sports by discouraging them from exercise, so it's far more important for that to not happen than for him to go to it.

You're a being a very good parent here, don't let anyone tell you any different!

I would give him the day off and spend it doing something he really loves BUT then I would
work towards signing him up for a variety of activities outside of school that he is showing a little interest in (don’t link it to sport day) and then assess to see which ones he’s good at. Children need a gentle push with some sports - I signed mine up to football and now he’s winning awards and his self confidence and esteem has increased significantly. Children need sports whether it’s rounders, running, cricket, netball. I would definitely suggest doing it external
to the school too. The social aspect to it is great and you’ll see your child flourish. I understand not all children are great at sports - I was one of them (a confidence issue for me) but now as an adult I’ve discovered rounders and netball.

Also just wanted to add that I award my child on how well he tries and not the result necessary. When we started the football there was one time where the players were really good and my son was really struggling. He asked to go home so we went home and paused it for a couple of months and tried again. To me that’s resilience, resilience isn’t seeing your child upset and letting them get just get on with it. It’s meeting their needs, discussing it and then trying again when the time is right.

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.

Or maybe it is because they have been forced to engage in so many negative things in their school careers: rigid narrow curricula, ritual humiliation by sports day, the wholly unnecessary SATs game - some children are put off education very early by all this and think it is not for them. Then they spend the next 12 years having to endure it all. Then - surprise surprise! - mental health problems.

It is about balance.

I think that initially the word resilience was used in a positive way, constructively helping children to deal with the fact that life is far from perfect. It has now morphed into an excuse to chuck anything negative at children.

My "extreme example" was intended to illustrate the humiliation that children feel on sports day by drawing an equivalent.

The fact that so many posters talk about hating sports day is very telling - I wonder how much exercise they do now?

Well put.

Some do win at everything, one of mine was very academic, played an instrument and was the captain of the football team, was asked to play in a tournament the first time he went to a tennis lesson and was very popular. He's a very happy, well paid adult with a lovely wife and 2 healthy kids.

It really isn't a question of some kids are sporty and some are academic oh and so and so is great at art. Just like some kids excel at lots of things for others they don't succeed in anything and sports day is just the final straw.

When you've seen schools parading the clever kids around has that been followed by the ones who are not academic and struggling? I have to say I've never seen that but would it go like this, "Let's welcome Mary, Lucy and John who all scored over 95% in their maths exam, now here comes Jane, Harry and Luke who all scored less than 5% in the exam, lets give them a loud encouraging cheer and if you feel like laughing we will know you mean it in a positive way."

Yup. Big agree. If you then add in something like dyspraxia, dyslexia, adhd etc it's worse still.

My 5yo did his sports day this week and he probably got in about two minutes of exercise in the hour he was there. I just see it as yet another reason to get parents involved in school, which is lovely, but not if it's upsetting your DC. Totally fine to withdraw them if they're upset by it imo. It isn't even compulsory at secondary. Only for kids who love sport and want to participate

If I can keep DD9 off for sports day then I will. She really struggles with it.

DS11 and DS5 are fine with it though so they'll be going.

But they don’t parade the worst kids around. That’s the whole point. Most kids can cope with everyone else knowing they’re not the cleverest kid in the school; everyone knowing you are the least clever kid is quite different. That’s what happens on sports days: everyone sees you coming last, not just not coming first.

Really? So do you do that? Do you regularly sign up to compete in public events in sports and activities you dislike and aren’t good at in order to continue building resilience?

Yeah. Maybe they should do it for reading too? They could have an event where each child has to read aloud for assorted parents and guests. If they’re rubbish at reading it doesn’t matter! It’s just a bit of fun and someone has to be the worst.

I was about to ask the exact same question. How many pro-sports-day posters who are tone deaf regularly compete in public singing competitions? How many who can’t draw and have no interest in art publicly exhibit their artworks? How does anyone find the time or the energy to compete in all the disciplines they’re not good at - and why would they want to anyway if they don’t enjoy them…?

Let him miss it, it's nothing to do with resilience. I still remember the humiliation of sports day and the showers we were forced to take after P.E. I was bad at sports and insecure about my body. I am sure it has affected me negatively mentally. I am in my sixties and still shudder at the memory.

My parents would not have listened. But I would never have let my children go through that.

Losing - esp the ability to lose resiliantly - is so, so important in real life and sports day type competitions are the most accessible way most kids can learn that. The biggest reason I’m earning and am a high earner in a competitive field is because I don’t taking applying to (and being rejected from) 400 jobs. I dust myself off and keeping working. Being able to lose resilently is why I’ve been able to be successful despite major personal challenges.

I'm sure coming last in the egg and spoon race has put your career on a sound footing.

No sorry, we're not talking about losing here. It's being humiliated in front of crowds of people.

And have you applied to 400 random jobs in disciplines you have no interest in or aptitude for or do you stick to your area of expertise?

Losing resiliently is great and all, but we should at least be able to choose what we compete in.

losing resiliently is one thing.
losing resiliently in front of all the school, teacher, and parents is another

losing in front of everyone when every day at school you lose at everything already is also another thing.

Things to make you resilient are fine unless they are so bad they leave permanent damage and eventually cumulatively break you.

This is nonsense. Why would he think that? Children are perfectly capable of understanding that some things are non-negotiable, and some aren't, if it's explained to them properly.

As I said upthread, I have allowed my Autistic DD to miss sports day. She has never been under any illusions that this means she will never have to do anything she doesn't like! She has to do things she struggles with every day, and always will. She still has to do PE at school (as will OP's DS) because its part of the curriculum and we've made her do swimming lessons for safety reasons. She gets that these things have to happen, but sports day doesn't. Its not a difficult concept.

The word resilience is being bandied about so much on this thread it's lost all meaning. An Educational Psychologist told me something once that has always stuck with me "we used to think resilience came from adversity, now we know it comes from secure relationships". Knowing his Mum has his back will make OP's DS more resilient, not less. The idea that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" has been thoroughly debunked by modern neuroscience but unfortunately there is still this perception that suffering is "character building" for kids. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

Yes this! My mum always says "you are the expert in your own child". You know for yourself what your child can handle and what is too much, and which life anxieties are just not worth it. I would take my daughter out of sports day if she was this worried about it.

The thing about parenting is it's difficult and there is not one size fits all approach. I agree that resilience is incredibly important and it's a child will meet with disappointment and failure throughout life.

A pick yourself up, dust yourself down and start again approach is often the best. Telling a child they can't be good at everything is fine, you just encourage wholeheartedly the things they are good at.

But sometimes there is something that causes a child such distress that forcing them to do is wrong. And will have the opposite result than the one intended in my opinion.