How to handle sports day this year?

[cadburyegg]

Sports day is next month and my ds7 is already worrying about it, bless him, and saying how much he hates it. He is the smallest in the year (0.4th centile), he’s hypermobile, he’s always last. My ds10 doesn’t much like it either but will take part begrudgingly.

I have considered taking ds7 out for the day considering he hates it but ds10 would be upset at the unfairness of it unless I take both of them out.

I was always terrible at sports and was last at everything. I wonder if there is a better way of dealing with things other than telling them “it’s not the winning that counts, it’s the taking part!” Surely making kids do races that they hate (my ds7 cried during his last year) isn’t actually very good for their development? Is there a happy medium between taking them out for the day and making them participate in everything? Can I tell them that actually they don’t have to do certain races? My two I think wouldn’t mind doing the egg and spoon / bean bags etc but the running and relay upsets ds7 in particular.

Or am I setting them up for a complete lack of resilience?!

Your dismissive attitude just illustrates the problems people with medical conditions face every day.

Well that's why there's usually 'egg and spoon, obstacle, sack race etc
When I was a kid, children just shrugged off losing, it wasn't a big deal. What has happened to make them so feeble?

Or you just didn't notice because you were a kid.

It also isn't just about losing, it's about coming last, always and very obviously struggling and with an audience who almost always make it worse.

Competitive races are fine for the sporty kids who want them but I don't see why kids who have no chance and find it miserable should have to participate if they don't want to.

It's supposed to be fun.

Dd2 worked herself up over it. I think when she was 8 I told her she never had to do it again.

Can we just be clear - for the hard of thinking - that publicly humiliating children, in front of the entire school, is not the best way to build their ‘resilience’. It’s actually cruel.

Yes. I can still remember how humiliated I felt at one particular sports days. Getting my legs all tangled up during the obstacle race (I can hear the sniggers 50+ years later), coming last in every race in front of everyone and feeling so small. The following year I broke my leg badly and my first thought was how pleased I was that I might be too unwell to take part in sports day.

I didn't do any sport for years afterwards. It wasn't until I was in my 30s/40s that I discovered if no-one was watching I could actually run quite fast.

What a way to put - some -children off exercise. Maybe we could get those who don't understand to sing in front of a whole school and the parents.

Just so counter productive isn’t it? Putting people off sports for life.

Plus it’s supposed to be sodding FUN not character building! So if it’s not fun don’t do it!

Theres a whiff of sadism about some of these posters - hope they are not actually parents.

Sure, but they don’t have to do maths (and look obviously worse than everyone else) while all the school and parents look on do they?

DD is very bright and working above age related expectations in English and maths. She’s a good all rounder at eveything non sports related, including music and art. She’s rubbish at sport. She knows keeping active is important for health but I’ve also always told her that actually being good at sport (which is different than keeping active) doesn’t get you anywhere in life and being as clever and creative as she is will get her far further. Luckily she doesn’t yet care about not doing very well on sports day (she’s in juniors) but if it upset her, I’d keep her off. Keeping active for health reasons is totally different to competing publicly in front of parents and peers- this isn’t done in any other area or subject (involuntarily).

My daughter is also hypermobile and is just under the 0.4th percentile. She can't run, and finds activities like jumping and skipping very hard. The school has usually allowed her to be a helper rather than a participant and she is much happier doing that.

It’s fine if they don’t care. Dd2 also came last but genuinely didn’t care so didn’t keep her off. Dd1 was self conscious and competitive herself she hated the condescending “well done champ” clapping and the public failure really bothered her. Good parents are responsive to how their children feel.

Dh and I don’t know what happened we both cleaned up on sports day! I fear my mother’s genes have crept in somehow.

I’m a bit torn about this one as I normally think kids should build some resilience and give things a try. However, I can see it becoming an issue for one of mine. She’s actually quite sporty but shit at running and is in a class with quite a lot of kids who love running and do park run every week. I find our sports day quite dull as it takes hours but the school does a fete afterwards which is lovely.

Setting a precedent is a bad idea. Gives child the message they can duck out if things are hard. Then you will have problems later. A bit of light bribery? Eg if you take part I know you hate it but I will still be proud. We can get an ice cream after.

Honestly I think this is an important lesson in resilience. Yes we shouldn't be humiliating children intentionally but if children are being humiliated on sports day then the school are doing it wrong and that's a different issue.

There are lots of kids who's strengths aren't in academics. They have to go to school every day struggling and probably feeling a bit inadequate. They don't get to check out of school because they're not as strong at these things as other kids. If a child is atheletically strong then shouldn't they get the chance to shine just for a day?

Encourage him to take part, do his best, cheer on his friends and most of all have fun. It's a couple of hours of his life and unless the school is horrendous I highly doubt he's going to be 'humiliated'

I had the same problem with DD I told her teacher she was worried about doing sports day she suggested instead she can take part by helping out (putting bean bags, hula hoops) etc back in place which was great as she wasn't missing out. Maybe u could ask if Yr son could do the same

I loathed sports day. School PE was a lesson in humiliation every week and Sports Day was that x100. Now as an adult I’m really active, go to the gym most days, have a qualification in dance. But all I was taught at school was to endure being shit. No one taught me to to catch or throw, or the rules of one single sport. What I learned is that kids will mock you for being shit and adults don’t give a fuck.

If my parents had taken me out of school for sports day, I’d have been so grateful and happy. Do it, OP. Maybe take them to do an activity the do enjoy like swimming or ice skating or literally anything. That’s what builds an active adult, learning that exercise doesn’t have to be torment.

Yes! Very similar to my experience. PE in itself can be such an ordeal. I was overweight and had undiagnosed dyspraxia. I used to dread the communal changing room and then what felt like the ritual humiliation of being picked last for teams and performing dance routines for the class 😱 I hope things are done differently now but I can imagine it’s still very hard for some children who are uncoordinated, overweight, self conscious etc. Put me off exercise for years and sports day was a whole other level of public humiliation! Finally rediscovered exercise as an adult and love being active now.

I find it interesting that some posts have focused on “he won’t be humiliated” when I never mentioned anything about humiliation.

Also my child isn’t “feeble” and he already deals with a fair amount in his life. It’s okay to want to take just one challenge off their plates I think.

You're assuming that the people who aren't academic will be the ones who succeed on sports day, when plenty of kids will excel at both, or seriously struggle with both.

Why can they only 'shine' at the expense of non sporty children? If they are sporty, surely they'd prefer to compete with other sporty children anyway?

That's life though. Some people are seemingly lucky. But surely sports day is not meant to show people up. It's meant to be a fun way to bring the school together and celebrate the students who are athletic not show up those who aren't. I can remember being crap at sports day. I was jokingly lifted up and carried to the end of the finish line by my teacher one time because I was taking so long in the sack race. Yeh it was embarrasing but nobody died. We shouldn't be showing kids up or bullying them but it's really unhelpful to the individual and society to teach them to avoid anything remotely uncomfortable either. It just breeds a fear/avoidance cycle rather than resilience

We banged our head on the PE wall all through primary school. My daughter did the first sports day but never did another until P7 when she was a house captain and wasn’t taking part in any of the sports. Each year we would pick a fun activity and go out and do all that instead.

At high school her key teacher said it was fine for her to go along and watch, loads of kids sat it out. This completely ignores the fact she is having to sit and watch kids doing things she’d love to do but can’t. We politely declined and said she wouldn’t be in school for sports day.

Forcing a disabled child to take part in something they hate does not build resilience. It teaches them they can choose not to take part in things which are not designed for them and make no effort to be inclusive.

Absolutely. He has, in his life, probably had to deal with more than most kids do. He already faces challenges and has overcome them. Getting out of bed and walking round school will feel like a marathon to him. He is not feeble, he is not weak, he is strong and more resilient than most. I have never met him but I know that about him.

Keep him off, do something fun, and to hell with anyone who doesn’t understand why. You are teaching him that you have his back, that you are on his side and you will do what you can to level the playing field with non disabled kids, until he is old enough to do that himself. That is a really important lesson for our kids.

Nope. Not acceptable. My disabled daughter was “included” in PE by being told she could keep score. It’s not inclusion if a disabled kid is simply in the room.

This is not a child who just isn’t sporty and doesn’t want to do PE. It’s a child who probably would love to do what the others are doing. Having him be a lackey just so he is there is not making sure he doesn’t miss out.

Quite. The resilience nonsense gets dafter every time we have these threads.