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?!

You’re part of the problem - people like you are why sports day is so humiliating for the unsporty, uncoordinated kids. Can you imagine being forced to participate in an activity you such at, with 30+ people staring and patronisingly cheering you as you come in last? These kids don’t want spectators.

Beautifully put. I was academic. I couldn't run in a straight line to save my life and was so nervous on the starting line that I would shake. Makes holding the egg on the spoon quite difficult. I hated it/ dreaded it, but I loved the bits where we could cheer on other people who were racing . You learn more from your failures than you ever learn from your successes. Running away from things when they are hard is not a good lesson to teach. Sometimes we are first , sometimes we are last .When my sons ( now 30 and 32) were in Reception they had a friend who was outstanding in the classroom situation. She was hopeless at anything physical. Her mother decided that she was never doing sports day again after her failures at the first one. She tried ballet and horse riding. She was removed from those because she wasn't ever going to be an Olympic champion. If she couldn't succeed then she simply didn't do. She's 32 now too. She has very little resilience.

Exactly! I'd have smashed a spelling test in front of the whole school but it would have been monstrously humiliating for the children with dyslexia

There are plenty of ways to move your body that are nothing to do with athletics.

Just keep them off. DS is dyspraxic and when at mainstream, I never, ever made him participate. It’s unnecessarily cruel to humiliate a reluctant child in public - I still hold a grudge against my rancid primary PE teacher who put me off exercise for years!

Completely agree

Yes exactly. They might come last but it doesn't need to matter to them but it does matter to some of the kids who get few opportunities to be the best at something.

I'd also caution that they might not always be the worst. My son was last at everything age 7. Now at 11 he's pretty fast (though still a slow starter). He's rubbish at the egg and spoon and the one where they have to go through hoops but he's looking forward to the running race.

It has actually been quite positive for his self esteem which I really didn't think would be the case.

Hmmm no actually. Kids with SEN are given work to their ability, don’t have their results paraded in front of the whole school and parents and don’t have to perform in front of the whole school and parents so no it’s not the same- at all!

My dd hated sports day and always stayed home that day, as did a few in her class. School made clear it wasn't compulsory and obviously not for everybody. Traditional sports day forced people who weren't good at physical activities to be there so that winners can win. At dd's school pupils were encouraged to enter races etc that they were good at or enjoyed. Likewise poetry or maths competitions. There was something for everybody but they weren't forced into it.

This is a very sensible answer.
It is very important to learn to be bad at something and to congratulate others gracefully.

making kids do something they don’t want to do is good for their resilience. If you let them opt out every time they don’t want to do something they will never learn to be uncomfortable. This is a vital skill. It will help their mental health in the long term.

That's what makes it so humiliating. No one wants sympathy cheers.

Exactly this. Parents that moan their children have to do one measly day of races compared to some kids who aren’t academically gifted but they have to attend school every day. If you take your kids out, you’re making it even more of a problem.

This!! This all over, it’s one day, some people struggle with things they do EVERYDAY and they still have to take part. Get them two voice it. Ask them what they’re good at how often they have to do it and the fact that they don’t mind is a great thing then ask him is there someone in their class that they know who struggles with that and how often they have to do it. It may get them to realise that other people are struggling on the same level of them on an everyday basis rather than just for one day of the year. There’s two mantras they need to learn in life.

1. Feel the fear and do it anyway!
2. This too shall pass!

But sometimes we are last and we are last. For a lot of children who are neither sporty nor academic, sports day is yet another reason to feel crap about themselves. This time, in front of an audience.

This too.

These threads always seem to assume that if someone isn't sporty, they are academic or if they are sporty, they aren't academic.

Sometimes the children winning everything at sports day are the academic kids too.

Sometimes the children who come last at sports day also 'come last' in the maths tests.

Fucking hate sports day. For kids like yours and mine it's like making a dyslexic kid take part in a public spelling bee Infront of the whole school and all their families. Horrendous.

Of course it happens, and maybe the people doing it are well intentioned.

It's still a major factor in the humiliation and embarrassment though and something I remember very clearly from my own school sports days, which were mainly back in the 1970s. Nobody should be forced into that sort of ritual on display to the entire school and baying crowds of parents. It has to be a choice, but all too often it isn't because PE teachers seem to consider it character building. It is not character building, it is embarrassing and humiliating. It makes you want to go and hide away.

If any of my three children had ever shown any signs of finding sports days traumatic then I would have either kept them at home where they could have relaxed and concentrated on other work or approached the school to see if more suitable roles could be found for them.

You mention the youngest is hypermobile... I have a hypermobile teen.

Sports day for her was humiliation. She hated it consistently. We often had issues like they were on the field for hours with no toilet access so she'd wet herself too - also part of her hypermobility. She didn't do very any sports days in primary. She also doesn't do PE in secondary as they couldn't keep her safe (2 broken bones in 3 terms from activities she wasnt supposed to be doing...) she is however a competitive swimmer outside of school!!

I'd talk to her teacher. Explain he is uncomfortable ask - given his disability - is there another role he can play? If the answer is no he has to run I'd take him out. Hopefully they will come up with something. If they say we'll see - ask again the day before what his role will be. No alternative role I'd not send him. The older child... I'd explain the youngest has these issues and life isn't easy - sometimes things will be different for him. Tbh though if oldest still doesn't want to go I'd probably keep him off too if I had to keep youngest out as they couldn't accommodate.

I’d ask them what they want to do and if they want the day off I’d let them without a second thought. Resilience isn’t made from being forced to take part in sports day.

Thanks for the responses.

My kids are neither sporty or particularly academic. They do OK, both slightly below expectations in writing but do OK in everything else. They already worry about academics! My 7 year old was saying how he was “bad at maths” (he isn’t) yesterday. They are not huge fans of school in general and no I don’t let them miss every little thing. They go to school unless they are poorly and that’s it. I am not convinced that missing sports day will be a bad thing.

So I agree that the sporty kids aren’t necessarily the non academic ones. It’s not one or the other. I was the same and still grew up to be a well rounded individual. But being crap at sports put me off exercise for a long time.

I will see how it goes as we have another month. I am not convinced the school will let them do another activity.

Booking an eye test etc would be a good idea but won’t really work because ds10 has his sports day in the morning and ds7 in the afternoon.

Yes, I’m remembering my own school days. A lot of the academic kids were also very good at sports and it was more positive reinforcement for their self esteem. Some of the kids who were worst at sport and struggled most were a group of children from very deprived backgrounds who were also in the bottom sets. I’m sure every single day was a struggle for them and this just added to their challenges. It can also be torture for children who are overweight, I can attest to that! My strengths lay solely in the academic side of school, but I didn’t learn any profound lessons from being forced to participate in things like
sports day and swimming galas. It just made me feel humiliated and put me off exercise.

If the 10 yo will suck it up, I'd speak to the 7 yo teacher esp regarding their hypermobility etc and see if she can do something none sporty. I don't understand the medical condition but would a flare up bar them from competing on the day?

Otherwise a well timed medical appt.

They dint need a full day off. It's a couple of hours out of a full school day.

Lots of interesting perspectives here - can’t quite work out what I’d do! I feel slightly uncomfortable about taking my DS out of school just because it’s sport day and they don’t like losing. It feels like you’re confirming the narrative that they’re rubbish and shouldn’t try. Even if you say “we’ll skip it, it doesn’t matter,” it does matter a lot in their world and they could think you’re embarrassed by their performance too. Maybe that’s not how they’d interpret it but I feel like it adds to the insecurity rather than helping them.

I think I’d be tempted to speak to the class teacher and give them a heads up that it’s already causing some anxiety and how can you work together to help manage it. I’d speak to my son about why he hates it, trying to get him to express feelings he has so he knows that he can talk to me about these things openly. I’d also highlight things he is really good at and how some of his friends maybe feel like that about other things too so it’s normal to feel angry/sad/frustrated when things are hard. Kids who find academic subjects more challenging do go through this every day - they know when their book is shorter or has bigger words, they know if their worksheet looks a bit different or when they take longer to do something.

Finally, I’d probably say that it’s a school day so he has to go in but then organise a ‘yes’ day asap after where he can decide what you eat/do all day because you understand that it’s something he finds really hard and you’re proud of him for showing up and trying. I’d also make sure after the day (not straight after as he might need time to work through any emotions), I would make sure we chatted about things that went well that day.

I should add that the attendance is otherwise good - 98% and 97%. Being as many people take their kids out for term time holidays I genuinely don’t see why missing one sports day is supposedly bad tbh. But I am worried about setting a precedent, if they will assume I will let them miss other days of school , which is why I’m hesitating