To let Dd skive off tomorrow because of sports day?

[Cadela]

Honestly, the way the school organises it is horrendous. It’s FOURTEEN different ‘sports’ that you have five minutes at, and the kids have to perform in front of their peers so it’s already stressful. Plus there is no races, no medals, no winning!

Last year Dd was crying the whole way round because she was so worried about looking silly in front of the year 6s. She’s 7.

Usually I am very much of the let’s crack on and show ourselves we can do it! Mindset, but honestly Dd has been crying about this every bedtime and I just don’t want to force her to do it.

Two out of my four children have never done sports days. I keep them off because they hate them.

They hate the sitting around waiting, they hate performing in front of others, it's either baking hot or too cold, and in between the races is boring.

I have no issue in doing that. Mine have chosen to stay at home and do some arts and crafts at home instead.

@CassandraWebb the egg thing is awful, nasty and wasteful.
I agree that nurturing is a part of resilience.

Actually, I think being a parent is about teaching your kids to solve their own problems. It isn't the same thing.

As a general rule, I don't think teaching kids to run away from problems is a particularly good strategy. Much better to tackle them head on. In this scenario, I think I would be asking for a meeting with the class teacher and getting dd to explain exactly how she feels so that the school can implement strategies to help her manage her anxiety.

Allowing kids to just avoid things that they're worried about just gives them the message that you don't think they're capable of handling them.

I think I’d just be looking at why it’s such an ordeal for her at 7 and trying to help her through that. My son wasn’t keen on the swimming carnival and said this was because he wasn’t sure when he was supposed to race, and he didn’t want to come last.
We talked it through and he took a notebook so he could make sure he remembered which races he was in. We also tried to remember who came last in previous races and found that we couldn’t even remember who won, let alone who came last - so even if he did come last, chances are no one would remember anyway. We also talked about how someone has to come last and that if anyone said anything, he should just say “well we can’t all win, otherwise it wouldn’t be a race would it?”

So i would be concentrating on figuring out what the issue is. Surely at 7 no one is “not sporty” - they haven’t had time to make that decision yet! None of them are brilliant anyway, they all just run around and as you say it isn’t even competitive it would be interesting to find out what she’s worried about. That’s where the resilience comes in - figuring out what’s at the root of the issue and tackling that.

It's a good idea to show kids that if they're able to opt out of something that is fundamentally stupid with no negative consequences, they can just do it. There are problems that need to be faced up to, but this isn't one of them. It's useful to learn that distinction early.

I would keep her off for one day if she is otherwise not a skiver and is showing significant anxiety about it. I wouldn't lie to the school though. Keep everything above board, let your daughter have a mental health day. Maybe plan it in future, that she gets one 'get off school free' card a year or term.

It has enraged me since my own school sports days; indeed it put me off exercise for decades, because I wasn't 'good' at it. Only found out I like running at 50!

They don't force less academic people to demonstrate their academic skills (or lack of) infront of their peers in an excruciatingly embarrassing way...why do they do it with sports?

Keep her off. She'll always remember that you had her back. If you can, go do something 'sporty' that she enjoys, to remind her we are all different.

Something else that occurs to me - I mentioned my physical disability making sports day a nightmare upthread. I used to work in a primary school and in everyday school life was able to model that kind of resilience/having a go if it ever came up. (Yes, Miss Temporal's not very good at running, but we're all good at different things and we can find ways to join in and have fun even if we're not the best, etc etc)

Not a chance in hell I'd have taken part in the teachers' race on sports day, even with my colleagues pressuring me to be a good sport and join in. Not in front of a lot of adults I barely knew.

If I wouldn't do it myself, I wouldn't force an upset child or sensitive teenager to do it.

Not necessarily! Long time ago, but neither of my schools had a sports day. My son’s primary school did, but not secondary. Though I agree that if the DD is experiencing the same anxiety next year, it would be worth discussing with the school in the run up.

I've kept mine off since he was about 9, in his school there is still the traditional races such as running, sack race etc. I hated sports day when I was young and my mum kept me off for about the last two years and I was so thankful. I do insist we do something that involves exercise that day so that it isn't just a "free" day. PE is non negotiable though.

I get what people are saying about not being able to opt out of Maths, however you perform on paper, no one around you knows if you are struggling and you get to look at your score in private.

The thing is.. some kids are bad at maths (I hated it) but still have to do it. Its not like those kids can’t not go to school. What example are you setting for your daughter? Sports will keep her fit and healthy which to me is a great benefit!!

My son is dyspraxic. He was always last in every race and felt awful by the end of it. It was the same with me apparently. I spoke to the school to see if he could do something else but they refused, so each sports day he had an illness. Nothing was said to me, it was probably policy that each child had to take part and I guess the teachers knew but secretly agreed with me.

Sports Day isn’t easy at all for non sporty kids, who probably feel crap about it anyway without the entire school looking on.

Sports day is torture for kids who are not sporty and I agree that the need to publicly “reward” kids for a genetic accident in front of their peers and their peers parents is borderline cruel. I think it’s a weird inheritance from public schools where that kind of thing is deemed “character building”. I hated it and my DD hates it.

In my DD’s school the kids choose teams. There is a group of girls in her year who deliberately put the weaker athletes up for challenging sports which they know they won’t excel at in order to laugh at and berate them when they fail. It’s borderline bullying.

That said I don’t think it’s ideal that signal to kids that they can just drop out of stuff because they find it hard. I think the “building resilience” point is overdone but I do think children need to learn that life sometimes involves doing things that are hard or boring or uncomfortable.

My solution was to talk to the head of year to say “look I know its mandatory and I will make DD go but I do want you (the school) to consider the impact on the self esteem of children who are not naturally good at this and there’s a safeguarding dimension to this if you are allowing children to pick teams.”

The school acknowledged that some children were being a bit vindictive when they picked teams and removed this privilege and my daughter was put on a sport which she was better at.

To me that was a happy medium: showing DD I have her back, flagging to the teacher that not everyone enjoys it but also modelling to DD that you try to find a solution as opposed to just not doing it.

Depends on their attendance. My eldest always has 98-100 % attendance, she detests sports day. So every year I let her have it off. I tell school that she isn't feeling well. It's just one day and it makes her miserable to go.

Why are people still trotting out maths comparisons that don't actually compare?

One, there isn't a maths equivalent of sports day. And two, we live in a society where not learning maths would put a child at a disadvantage, whereas there's no such disadvantage from missing sports day.

Sports will keep her healthy but OP isn't stopping her doing sports completely, it's just ONE day.

Keep her home. Not worth the stress for her. If she was stressed about a test or friendship issues that would be different and somethinv you and the school could work together to solve.
A day of sporting activities are not fun for anyone apart from the sporty kids.
Imagine all of the kids that struggle academically had to take a test in front of everyone and then have all of their scores posted for everyone to see...thats effectively the same thing and we would think that was unfair.

She a child! Of course a parent needs to sort most difficulties. There is a total power imbalance between children and adults. As we develop into adults, we are able to sort things ourselves with other adults as equals.

Keep her off. She's already struggled by 'pushing through' last year and is now anxious and tearful? I don't see any good from forcing her this year. Sure, lots of talks and encouragement from you and trying to make a plan together - and if that works then great - but if not I think compassion and safety is the way to go. Especially at 7! She is unlikely to learn the sorts of groundbreaking life lessons people are expecting, more likely to feel lonely and frightened for no reason.

Exactly, you don't have to put where you came in the 100m race on your CV or university application 😂 Maths on the other hand....

I agree it’s very frustrating that people keep keep claiming it’s a binary “maths kids vs sports kids” duality. It’s a grotesque oversimplification.

In my experience the kids who do really well at sports day are usually the all rounders who are good at everything as opposed to what’s being suggested here which is that it’s a sop to non academic kids. It’s a complete myth that it’s a consolation prize for the non academic kids.

There is no automatic correlation (positive or inverse) between your academic performance and your sports prowess.

Sports do keep you healthy, but sports day is really "athletics day". There are plenty of other ways to be sporty. ..

It's the performative element. If sports day didn't involve parents attending I doubt anywhere near as many children would mind. But at my daughter's school some of the dads in particular literally behave like they are at a football match yelling at the competitors

This too. Nobody making this argument ever has a thing to say about the kids who do badly at both.

Plus you can be very sporty /active but not enjoy athletics. My nephew is an incredibly good climber and swimmer and wins competitions, but he utterly loathes athletics.