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?!

This, 100% this. It’s not something they will ever have to do in their adult lives or anything remotely comparable, resilience is one thing, something that will impact on their mental health for years another. However showing them you are on their side is absolutely priceless.

@StClabberts im not engaging with you any further. I made my point, I put forward my thoughts. That’s all I was doing. There’s no need to be so rude with all of your responses

Why are so many parents fixated on who wins or loses? Its a shitty example to set and totally the wrong way to view children's sport. Sports day isn't about that. My DS loves it. Doesn't win anything but its an afternoon messing around on the field with his friends and an ice lolly thrown in. Just a bit of fun. Like sport should be.

He plays for a sports team outside school. They win some, they lose some. Nobody feels humiliated. The mindset of some parents that if their kids might lose, they're not going to play is very weird.

Yes, and when you say something on a discussion forum people get to tell you it's wrong. Probably best you don't tell anyone else they're being rude after you typed all that in respect of a child who literally wet themselves. So minimising and disrespectful.

It isn't the parents, it is how the children are feeling. It's great that your DS loves it but many, many children don't and it often isn't about not winning, it's about coming last every single time and feeling humiliated when the pity cheers/claps happen again and again and again.

Or other children outwardly groan because they know your rubbish and don't want you on their team because they want to win.

You say ‘nobody feels humiliated’ but there are many people who have stated how humiliated they or their children were on sports day. Just because your son enjoys being part of a sports team, doesn’t mean all children do.

Competitive sport shouldn’t be the sole aim of the PE curriculum. As some people have already argued, fitness and skills would be a better thing to teach.

My child hated the kids messing around and the chaos of it all. An ice lolly didn’t help. Not all kids are the same.

This is a good idea. I went to a primary sports day, my child was smallest in year and not sporty, couldn't find them! Then I noticed a table with two children sitting deep in concentration as the results were brought to them - mine had been given the job of keeping score!

He often had to read in front of his whole class and parents could see he was still on reading scheme when everyone else was a free reader. He is good at other things like Maths. I've always told mine very few people are good at everything. Do your best.

Yep. And children who choose to spend free time on a sports team are a self selecting, unrepresentative group not comparable to the general school population.

That's not remotely comparable though. We're talking the whole school and parents, not just classmates in a classroom setting.

'Do your best' doesn't make up for such public humiliation, as many on this thread will attest to.

Also @SouthLondonMum22

I just don't buy that losing = humiliation. It's the wrong way to view sport and parents have a role to play in modelling this rather than avoiding getting involved.

Then maybe sports day should be done differently because far too many children come out of school hating sport and feeling humiliated.

It doesn't matter what parents say or do, always coming last is going to feel shit, kids sniggering behind your back is going to feel shit and parents sympathy clapping/cheering is always going to feel patronising.

An ice lolly isn't worth it for such a shit day.

My DCs are in their 30s.
DC1 sports days were initially traditional style races with 1st, 2nd 3rd etc.
After about 3 years they changed style.
Children were put in teams made up of children from all year groups, picked at random. Each group carried out an activity, eg throwing balls into buckets and learned points. Somebody blew a whistle and the group moved to the next activity. Nobody had a clue who was winning until the very end.
Great for my non-sporty DC, not so great for the competitive types.

Local primary stopped parents going to sports day over covid and decided to keep it that way as kids were so much more relaxed, no tears, no kids being kept home.
Some parents were and are up in arms about not being allowed but school is putting kids first.

Local primary does this too.

Completely agree. For some reason public humiliation is ok in sports. I disagree with this but my DCs school think it’s ok as some struggle with maths every day. Guess what? Some poor kids can’t do maths or sport. Some are good at both.

I asked why they don’t get all the DC to do a public spelling test and they said that would
be cruel. The irony.

I think this is a great idea.

I played a few sports and was average at best at all of them. I was part of a group of friends who all excelled at sports so I always felt inadequate, there is something about the competitive aspect and the feeling of not being chosen that I think really affects a child. I remember my mother telling me, when I was a bit older in fairness, that even though they were naturally better than me in reality they were all fairly average and none of us, either them or myself, would be able to play sport professionally or even at university level. Your kids are probably too young g to appreciate this but it actually made me feel a lot better, I gave up teams sports in my teens but I do remember two of these "friends" (who had been quite competitive and rude to me at times when we played together) trying out for university teams and being rejected. I'm ashamed to say it made me feel quite smug. I'd try find a solution with the teacher or alternatively take them out for the day!

Yep.

Also, in a classroom setting, if a child does make fun of another child for struggling with maths, it’s easier for the teacher to see it happening or for the child to tell the teacher and for the teacher to deal with it straight away.

In the chaos of sports day, the kids are all chatting, cheering etc, so if some of the children choose to make fun of others, it’s easier for kids to get away with it. It happened years ago when I was at school, it happened when my kids were that age and it’s still happening now.

I know so many people who were put off sport and exercise due to sports day and how PE lessons were/are conducted and it’s a real shame.

@Loveduppenguin gave a whole bunch of ideas upthread about how to make it an inclusive day for everyone rather than simply withdraw children from the day. Their line of reasoning was crystal clear if you read their posts.

It is a bad message to tell children they don’t have to do sport, exercise isn’t important or that if they don’t like something they can just opt out of it. Its a lot better to try out some of the ideas suggested by @Loveduppenguin and others up thread and discuss it with the school before taking the nuclear option.

My daughter used to compete in kids triathlons and one year her friend (also 10) decided she would give it a go having done zero training, she could barely swim 200m and had never done open water swimming before, she didn't have a decent bike and on the day it got stuck in second gear. She had trouble in the transitions because her number was pinned through both sides of her t shirt. She was just starting the run when everyone else was finishing. The Marshall asked her if she wanted to skip the run or a lap of the cycling but no. When she came in everyone was really cheering her and they definitely weren't doing it in a pitying way. They admired her grit.

School can be really hard. It sounds like your child has some physical reasons why sports day isn’t working for him - hyper mobility, height etc. For other subjects the school should be making adjustments to make the learning and activities accessible eg appropriate maths tasks, extra time in exams if you have dyslexia etc. I think it would be reasonable to ask what they could reasonably do to make this work as well as it can for your son in the same way as they would if he were struggling to access other subjects or activities and come at eg the photos idea from that angle. Sports day was always painful for my daughter for similar reasons so I hear you and I understand your conundrum. Hypermobility can be covered by the Equalities Act which schools must adhere to.

My child’s school wasn’t interested in discussing or listening and I know other parents who have had the same response from their children’s schools

Due to that, I let my child have the day off. That was better than my children learning that sport/exercise was a negative thing. My child is older now but does a lot of running, weights and swimming.

Sometimes you can opt of things and it’s for the best in the long term. Missing sports day doesn’t have to be a big deal.

This is a much better arrangement