‘Mean girl’

[backinthebox]

I got called a mean girl today. DS was taking part in a team endurance event. He did not get to choose his teammates, the organisers did, and he was teamed up with another boy and 2 girls, we suspect because they wanted his good navigation and teamwork skills to balance out the refusal of the girls to learn or practice.

One of the girl’s mothers was convinced her DD would not finish. She repeatedly said in front of her daughter she did not expect her to finish. I said she would finish - it was a team event and there was no part even starting if you were expecting to bring your whole team down, it was not fair on the others.

They were making good progress and based on the speed they were keeping up we headed down to the finish line to cheer them in. They were only about 10 minutes from the finish line, but did not appear. Find Friends showed them not moving, just out of sight of the finish line, and they stayed there for about 40 minutes. Eventually they appeared over the brow of the hill, in a much bigger group than they had set off in, and sat down. All the members of this group were girls, except for DS and one other boy, and they did not sit down. The organisers and assembled parents were wondering what was going on. They stayed sat down for another 10 minutes, in sight of the finish line, with DS and the other boy standing some way apart from the.

Eventually they got up and crossed the finish. DS had said that they had been going fine until they had caught up with another team made up of all girls, and then they had slowed to the other team’s speed. When they had asked the girls in their team to keep walking, the other team had said they were bullying the girls and would be reported and disqualified. The boys were desperately keen to finish, so they backed off. The girls then started throwing food at them. They had sat down and refused to move in direct response to the pleas from the boys to keep moving - it was a power play move to show they could control whether they crossed the finish line or not.

The mother who thought her daughter wouldn’t finish was delighted with her DD’s performance, and was amazed she had finished at all. Happily telling anyone in earshot that just finishing was more than she had hoped for and that her DD normally refuses to finish any physical activity and has never walked more than a couple of miles before. I replied that perhaps it would do her good to get out and walk a bit more - if she was going to take part in team hiking events knowingly setting out to scupper the team is unfair to the other team members. For this, I was called a mean girl.

AIBU to think that 1. telling your child repeatedly that they are going to fail is probably setting them up to fail, and 2. you don’t put your child onto a team of enthusiastic participants if you know your child is likely to sabotage the other kids’ efforts, and 3. you don’t praise your child when you’ve stood and watched her actively sabotaging her team?

It made me really quite cross, and quite sad for DS and the other boy. I’ve told DS that sometimes you get stuck with team members that you just can’t motivate, and he did well to keep his enthusiasm to the end. I will be making sure he isn’t stuck with the known difficult members next year though.

Same here.

some people really do teach children that speed alone makes you a winner and it’s not the case at all. If you are in a team, decent teamwork makes you win not selfish determination. That’s a recipe to loss!

How did they manage to be teamed up together? Who chose which teams they were put in?

so was this just some random school sports day? Why do you actually care in that case? If it was a professional event then it'd be pretty bad but it's just a casual event this is so dramatic

Hmmm
Mids always make out they’re the wronged party and the other party were completely and inexplicably unreasonable. Pre-teens are hardly the purveyors of truth. I think you need to get the girls’ side of the story rather than writing them off as gossiping meanies and your son as the victim who only said a light swear word.

Its a 7-9 hour hike, totally reasonable to expect a break and a sit down.
The fact you think your child is responsible for another child completing this challenge shows you’re a tad deluded about the magnanimity of your son

It's frustrating that a competitive team event would mix up the teams like this. Surely in a "proper" competitive event you would have your A team, B team etc. so the ones who are really taking it seriously have a chance to excel and the ones who are just in it for the experience can enjoy themselves and not feel under pressure? I think it's the way the teams were organised that is the issue here because it was detrimental to everyone involved.

It would seem there is a branch of MNer who thinks sport and competitive events should be ‘just a bit of fun’ and those who don’t really want to to it should be humoured and accommodated at the expense of those who do.

I strongly believe that sport should be for all and that there should be opportunities for the very competitive to take it seriously, but also a lot of encouragement and support for everyone to participate. It's possible to have both.

I'm amazed that people think you should get enormous praise for a hill walk. How have fitness levels fallen so low?

Nobody thinks 'bloody hell' is swearing and it sounds as if the take-it-easies ganged up on the keen.

It's not bullying to exhort people to pull their weight where they can. And it's manipulative to threaten people with reporting for bullying, where they are not. Awful behaviour.

If it was something like an orienteering event, it's reasonable for team-members to expect other team-members to pull their weight, rather than Avvin a Laff. They can have a rest and chat when they get home!

The responses here feel like a pile-on on the OP - heightened-language responses insisting relentlessly that she is a Mean Girl. Which is ironic, really. Look in the mirror and tone it down!

I think it’s important to have both too. Otherwise you just get the horrible dynamic of an angry PE teacher style experience for kids that we all had to tolerate when we were younger and it’s not fair on those who try but perhaps aren’t naturally athletic.

Agree! It sounds so... mediocre. Why shouldn't this boy try and achieve? Honestly all he's learned is negative stuff about a subset of girls and has done a mild swear which is rewarded by a spin on the drama llama. Net effect is that this boy will reckon girls are a pita as team mates in all likelihood.

I think it's the way the teams were organised that is the issue here because it was detrimental to everyone involved
I agree with this.In an event with prizes and an expectation of challenging yourself it makes sense that those who want to challenge themselves and enjoy the event are able to do so, without being teamed with those who either don't want to be there/parent think they're unlikely to finish/are having a laugh and aren't bothered/are needing to or wanting to be carried by others.

The teams really ought to have people with a similar intent together. I've seen some wonderful groups of teenagers carrying a team mate through an event and nobody minded because the weaker member of the team had a good attitude. I've seen other groups develop tricky dynamics, not because of individual fitness levels, but because some people in the group don't have a team attitude/were reluctant to engage/didn't want to challenge themselves/had a moaning attitude.

'Far cooler to be a loser. 🙄'

Come on now. You are a mean girl. Might as well own it.

No you are not a mean girl. Learning to be a team player is a valuable life skill and one which participating in team sports is designed to develop. If my kid had tried to sabotage the team in the way those girls did I would have been very disappointed in them.

Yes, sport should be for all and it is possible to run an event that caters for a wide range of abilities, in fact most mass participation events do. I like to boast that I've raced against Mo Farah 😂 though of course he was actually half way home before I'd even crossed the start line. But we both had our own, very different goals for the event and achieved them!
But as an amateur event organiser it's quite hard to do that. I'm running an event for kids this weekend in fact where the competitors range from the current age group number 1 nationally ranked athlete to some who are having a go for the first time. I want them all to have a great day and have put quite a bit of effort into achieving that but it's easier said than done and my plans may not be good enough so I don't want to be too critical of the organisers in this case. Organising such events is a pretty thankless task as it is and if you've kept most of the people happy for most of the time you've done a bloody good job!
But it does seem odd to have put what sounds like a rather mismatched team together. That said, I'm surprised the teams are not selected by the kids' clubs/schools? The only times I have ever seen event organisers intervene are where a small club can't raise a team and a bigger one is asked to lend them players or where independent entrants are put together to make a composite team. Those situations rarely produce winning teams but are usually well received by the participants and their parents as at least it means they can compete. It could be something like that which just didn't work out this time. Whatever the background circumstances sounds like there's some learning points for all involved though. Often it's not one thing or one person who causes upsets at events, but a combination of factors.

Ok, given your update on what he actually said/did to the girls, it does sound like the girls overreacted and were being rather petty and silly. Assuming that’s the full story of course.

Annoying - but not really a matter of people who want to do their best vs “losers” (delightful word that). So your division of people into those two categories isn’t really relevant. More a matter of some childish behaviour from, well, a bunch of children.

Your comments on the girl’s stamina weren’t called for, as it wasn’t a lack of stamina that caused her to stop. If you’d commented on her being childish to refuse to move and throw food I’d have more sympathy.

I'm curious what you're looking for from this thread. You asked if you were a mean girl

Strictly speaking, she didn't ask that.

@backinthebox I'm not sure you're going to get the MN naysayers on side ever on this point.
On the face of it, your DS sounds like a decent lad who wanted to get the thing done. He was faced with a group of kids who didn't particularly enjoy or want to be there. That's tough on anyone let alone a kid that age. He's learned some stuff. They may or may not have. And I think the organisers could be usefully be given feedback on how best to adjust group assignment for future years

And yet, that’s the title of the post.
It’s almost like OP is entirely focused on herself and not the children involved.

Oh, I wouldn't say that! Then again, she has told us a LOT about herself and how fantastic she is 😏