11 year old very upset about sports day

[Zombieof3]

My 11 year old suffers badly with anxiety. Sports day to her is a day of hell. She spend an hour last year crying in the school toilets as she couldn’t deal with everyone watching.

Tomorrow is sports day, she has already spent the evening sobbing. She hates the idea of everyone watching her and competing, she said she doesn’t feel good enough and it’s too much pressure for her.

She is currently being diagnosed for autism and I know this is very hard for her.

I honestly don’t know what to do, I can’t keep her home and I don’t feel like she should be made to do something that is going to make her unwell.

This isn’t really AIBU post but I was hoping for advice asap as I don’t know what to do. Shall I speak with the school in the morning to explain the situation and ask them not to make her partake and perhaps she can help in other ways?

It's not 'just a bit of fun' for everyone, for some it is highly stressful, humiliating and awful.

Treatment for anxiety may involve tiny, incremental exposures to the triggers for anxiety... however that is not the same as forcing a kid to go to sports day. The equivalent there is of me telling you spiders exist once a week for most of the year then dumping you in a room full of spiders one day a year and I'll guarantee that will not reduce an existing anxiety about spiders. It's likely to make it much much worse!

I deal with anxiety and fear in a species that cannot talk to us (dogs) - I really do know about fixing it and avoidance of triggers is a HUGE part of the solution, when used appropriately. The same science applies no matter whether its dogs, giraffes, children... all those saying 'avoidance won't help' literally do not know what they are talking about.

OP, swerve it, however you need to.

I disagree with many posters, eg @amusedbush. I didn't see anyone suggesting extreme things, shove her out the nest and make her fly / ie drown. Most posters were suggesting like @Windowcleaning said a 'gradual approach. Anxiety (plus also the ASD) needs long term work, long term working on, to help, support, address, deal with, coping mechanisms, coping strategies, because avoidance isn't going to be ok on many occasions, because there will be many times in life that you simply can't just 'avoid'.

Yes, my thoughts too. Clearly this isn't a case of just pushing through and with the suspected autism this could be deeply distressing....and unnecessary.
Ask the school if there arecalternative arrangements. If not keep her off school, maybe just for the afternoon (if later). She's 11. Surely she could manage a day at home unsupervised if you/someone really can't be with her.

Op did say they had done work on anxiety, and well-being sessions. But this is clearly not enough. dd clearly needs more help and support. A very kindly pp suggested OP start a new thread in SN, so other experienced posters can advice what other anxiety apps etc OP could be using.

Completely agree with you here. I’m also in my thirties and too anxious to even do a gym class because of bad experiences at school/sports day. It’s cruel to make children who aren’t good at sports perform in front of others.

My hypermobility wasn’t diagnosed until my late teens, so PE was generally miserable for me and Sports Day the worst of all. Can’t imagine how much worse it would have been with autism also in the picture. I was put off exercise for years and still have an absolute hatred of any competitive sport. If the school won’t compromise, keep her off.

I agree with all those saying let her miss the day. Nothing is worth getting that upset about. I hated sports day. I’m sure I’m traumatised for life from the experience. School sports put me off physical activity for a very long time until I found things I could do and have fun.

I kept my ASD DS (same age) off last week for his sports day. I thought about making him go in as it's only a morning but I just couldn't put him through it, he was losing sleep over worrying about it. I was honest with the school.

My dd (waiting for asd assessment) is the same. She says she hates the idea of everyone watching her and she's terrified she'll trip over and 'embarrass' herself.

The school are fine and don't insist she takes part, but once she's there she generally gets caught up in the excitement and takes part. She's actually very sporty (football) so I just think it's the pressure of the day.

I would not make her take part if she truly didn't want to. You wouldn't make an adult do a race in front of an audience if they didn't want to!

Our 6yo dd is on the waiting list for neurodevelopmental assessment. We suspect ADHD. She's super physical strong, fast and good at sporty activities which she normally enjoys. Yesterday was sports day. Round Robin team events. There was a penguin wobble activity where they had to carry a ball between their legs. That set her off crying and she ran to me saying she didn't want to do it, but couldn't explain why not. We moved onto the next activity and it was bean bags on heads. She cried and said she didn't want to do it. I just cuddled her, said it was fine to sit out and if she felt like she wanted to join in again she could. As soon as the pressure was off she decided on her own to join in. The teachers didn't make a fuss, I didn't make a fuss. She is extremely self conscious and that sometimes fuels her becoming overwhelmed when there are spectators, noise and things she needs to do that require carefully following instructions.

She normally masks, so being there and seeing it first hand and helping her through it made me understand the difficulties she faces that others don't see on a daily basis. But at secondary school I won't be there and her anxiety sometimes reaches levels that cause school refusal for longer periods of time. In that situation, I'd rather give her the occasional mental health break for the odd day she finds really challenging than further fuel her anxiety and see her completely withdraw from everything (which happened earlier this year).

Weirdly, it has helped her somewhat to see Lewis Capaldi performing at Glastonbury. We talked about how he felt with all those people watching and how it affected him, good and bad. We could see a penny drop as she realised that she wasn't alone.

Sure, it helps kids to build resilience. But we also need to know when to stop pushing them and just listen before we push them too far.

Totally disagree that she needs to be gently forced for her own good etc. There’s nothing in adult life comparable to primary sports day. Look at the above posters put off sport for life.

Frankly they are an anachronism and old fashioned hang over from harsher days and the sooner schools totally revise how they run them the better. Using less sporty kids as props to make the sporty ones look better is repellent. Didn’t let my own daughter be used like that when it upset her and she’s NT. Kept her off. At 17 she’s very diligent top gcses results volunteers for stuff for the greater good and enjoys her one sport so zero negative impact on her moral fibre.

What's the Long term plan though. Keep her off every year now that she knows you did it once? What's next, anything else she doesn't like to do and gets this much anxiety over you allow her to skip it?

This.

I never made DD go - not for any neurodiversity reasons, she was just terrible at sports and hated them. She is a fantastic young woman who is a teacher herself now and frequently teaches PE! Just not worth the hassle as a young girl.

DD has ASD her anxiety when she was in infants was so, so bad that she couldn’t see the truth of herself due to bullying. Could something similar be happening here?. It took a lot of work, a move of school, and professional advice to get dd to turn the corner & now she’s usually amongst the the best with sports / musical performances etc.

I don’t think sports day is like anything else really it’s so visible and exposed - so I don’t see that missing it will turn your child into a wet lettuce who bails on everything they don’t like. As numerous posters on this thread attest. You may end up doing more long term harm than good by forcing it and for what?

Imagine if we made children perform other things they were awful at, and then laughed at them for not being good at it.

Perhaps we should start giving the kids with zero musical talent a singing solo in the end of year show, and then have kids laugh at them for being completely tuneless. We could justify it by saying that it would make the musical but less academic kids look good by comparison.

Barmy - so why do people think it's a good idea with sports?

Let’s make all those children who are shit at maths recite their times tables so the parents of the able mathematicians can give sympathy claps and feel really pleased their own children are far better.

I have never been to a Sports Day where anyone was laughing at kids being slow 🤷‍♀️ Normally people clap and cheer on those who come last (as well as those who come first). I think posters are being very dramatic about something that is just a bit of fun.

I agree totally. That's not to say that the OP shouldn't do what she thinks is right for her dd but the obsession with sports day being some sort of Roman gladiatorial event is particularly Mumsnet.

It'd too late in the day to get anything organised that would make this tolerable for her now, and any attempts are going to add to the stress, so in you position I would keep her off. I'd approach the day in a structured way though, and include something of educational value and something active.
At the earliest opportunity I'd arrange a meeting with the school to discuss a strategy going forward so she can be supported to participate in future within her comfort levels.

That's exactly what I did with my autistic children, yes. It has caused them no harm whatsoever but certainly benefitted them. It's not such a big deal.

You may not see it but it definitely happens. I remember a friend still being ribbed about a sports day event during our Christmas term.

I have a sporty ASD DD and it is perfectly valid to find certain competitive environments overwhelming without linking this to being about sport in general or losing.

I would try to sit out sports day (I wouldn't advise this for a non sporty NT kid) but I would also find calm sports she can enjoy and build her self esteem on. Don't let sports day represent sports to her.

My DD loves some of our local park runs that are through woods and country parks. If I take her to the busy city centre one, she can't cope at all. This is not something I can "fix" it's who she is and my job is to keep her world view as big as possible within these limitations.

Good luck today whatever you decide to do.

Of course people judge! Especially at sports day

Why can’t you keep her off?

sports day is crap for many kids, and those saying they don’t judge? Bullshit

I still remember the absolute humiliation from my secondary school sports days, being the ‘let down’ in the relay, being yelled at even by our form tutor for letting the form down. the disappointment in my classmates face when I was selected to represent the form at any athletic event (which I’d have paid not to do, but teachers wanted it to be ‘fair’ and to not just have the fast kids do all the running events!)

I’m only 12 years out of secondary too so wasn’t a lifetime ago either

Ive vowed to never make my DD do sports day if she doesn’t want to, I hope she enjoys sports, but if not I’ll never force her to attend a sports day