Are our children resilient?

[Applesandbananaz]

DC's primary school is completely against competition in any form. They are worried about those who don't win becoming demotivated and upset as a result of the competition. I can understand this viewpoint in the early years of education, but by Key Stage 2 surely they need some competition? The school have also experienced parents getting very irate when faced with their child losing a particular competition, so prefer not to enter into any of it.

I have always assumed that learning to fail and pick yourself back up again is a crucial life lesson, and that without being put in situations where you might not come out on top, your are unlikely to be building much resilience. Am I wrong? What other ways can we ensure our children are building resilience?

That's crazy.

From nursery, there's a reader of the week, writer of the week, mathematician of the week and behaviour of the week award in every class every week.
There's four school houses and kids get house points.
Sports day is raced in houses and the winning house is announced plus every kids coming 1st - 3rd gets a medal.
That to me is healthy competition, learning to win well and lose well.

I'd not be impressed with a school that didn't want it's kids striving to win. Sometimes winning matters. Sometimes you need to do more than join in.

Having said that there's no competition academically, sports day is all in good spirits and we clap along to the slowest, the year 6's will go and help the slow ones etc.

Urgh I hate this! Kids need to learn that competition is a fact of life.
Sports Day gives kids who maybe aren't academic, chance to shine so I hate this view that there shouldn't be winners or that you get a medal for just taking part.
Let kids who came 1st celebrate that.
Kids need to learn how to win and lose graciously and able to congratulate other kids.

Incidentally resilience is 1 characteristic that's seen as being deficient in many kids nowadays, not surprising when schools subscribe to "everyone is a winner" mentality.

There’s a balance isn’t there but kids have to learn to fail well and to work at the things that don’t come naturally. Kids that aren’t so academic but are sporty also deserve their chance to shine.

I do however have issues with star of the week type rewards when the kids know they’re just on rotation. They should be meaningful and show a child has done something they’re proud of. The whole system at our school really pisses off my 8yo as she’s been able to see through it for years.

It’s tough because how children respond to competition varies - for some it is super motivating, but for others it can have the opposite effect and actually turns them off activities that they might otherwise enjoy and be successful in.

I have a dc with ASD who cannot deal with competition or games of chance - I think it has to do with her extreme black/white thinking, but it creates massive anxiety. She was consistently getting poor reports in one particular class and it turns out that particular teacher relied heavily on games to teach which made dc so anxious she couldn’t engage, loads of meltdowns, etc. This was in a subject where she is naturally talented- she’s now been given the opportunity to opt out of that element and is much more successful. In other arenas the over focus on competition (and some pretty over the top messaging around the value of ‘winning’ from adults) has made her sour on activities that she otherwise enjoys. She’s plenty resilient, though - she has near endless drive and persistence when teaching herself a new skill, so I don’t think competition is the end all be all method for building resilience.

I am not saying expunge competition, just recognise that it isn’t a healthy thing for all children in all contexts. I think it is also much better to run things like sports day on an opt-in basis - I am all for the kids who enjoy it having that platform, but for some kids it is a day they spend weeks agonising over and I am not really sure how that makes them more resilient.

Most kids love competition. And if you're any kind of decent teacher you can create opportunities for any kid to win at something!

Resilience is lacking in soooo many children these days, we need more ways to build resilience built into schools, not less!

Doesn't have to be competition, but even stuff like climbing trees or junk modelling means you can fail and keep trying.

Competition is just a motivation tool. It's lazy when it's overused. It's not healthy to be continually comparing kids to their peers. Better to track their own progress and look at their own improvement over time.

Agree

A better concept of "failing" would be for kids to set their own goals and try to meet them. It doesn't have to be direct competition.

I'm a primary teacher and no, they are not as resilient as previous cohorts. Huge rise in 'snowplough parenting' ie parents pushing all obstacles out of the child's way. Plus increased screen time and thus shorter concentration spans. Covid babies have significant speech and language barriers due to masked adults around them and lack of baby groups etc. All very challenging given the demands of the primary curriculum.

Parents becoming irate is a clear sign they lack resilience themselves. If it’s not modelled at home and not modelled at school, the children are unlikely to develop it spontaneously.

We have to be realistic and prepare kids for the real world where it is very possible to fail.

When that prep starts I don't know. When they are old enough to understand that losing isn't the end of the world. And winning now and again is nice. Not sure what age that kicks in!

Our school do this too, on one hand I’d like some competition but on the other because it’s pretty gentle the kids take part happily and everyone gets cheered on for effort.

They absolutely do recognise achievement in later years, there are awards for academics and sports as well, one child from each class is selected and then an overall winner who is an all rounder.

Yanbu

My kids ent to state primaries and there is as gentle competition from ks2.

It sounds like the parents at your school have a problem with resilience and the possibility that their child might not be the best at something which is obviously not the same as being good at that thing. Children with resilience would say “Tom is better at football than me but I am better at guitar or whatever” or say “I am going to practice shooting goals in the garden so I can be as good as Tom”

Resilient? You wait until June/July come around. MN will be full of parents seeking endorsement to withdraw their children from sports day and spend the day indulging them because they can’t cope with being last. And give it a few weeks into term, they will be bleating over their precious darling crying over not getting star of the week.

Life’s unfair kids. Remember that.

But surely at some point our children are all going to be in a competitive environment, whether that is aiming for a particular job, a university place or a sporting competition? If they don't learn to compete, surely they will be unprepared for how it might feel to miss out on a job you really wanted because at the end of the day, someone else was better than them.

Growing up there was a primary that had that opinion. Even the reports were done so that they didn't show any sign of how the child was performing/behaving. I remember one of dm's friends complaining that they'd been told "they're doing very well" on pretty much every report they had for both their kids, and not much else. As a child I didn't see what the issue was. 😀

As a general rule the children really struggled at secondary both with the academics and with any form of giving levels.

It's funny you mention the snowplough. We had a meeting at the school where the lack of competition was raised and supported by many, and all I could think was that we are raising a lot of snowflakes

I think failing in low key competitions in supportive way helps with learning to deal with big emotions like disappointment or anger as you do learn that it was actually OK as long as you are supported to learn that.

But I'm not sure it teaches you try again or try harder or to get support or to try differently. I think there are better ways to develop that.

My 14-year-old is very resilient but she grew up with horses so is used to very(!) tough people and also competes on horses. She's definitely much tougher than I was at her age.

There is nothing like competing or riding horses to build resilience! Am hoping my children show an interest as then it wouldn't matter what goes on at school

Children that experienced lockdowns aren’t very resilient, which isn’t surprising seeing as they were told to hide away indoors because of something that would cause them to get cold for huge chunks of their lives.

I can understand why the school would rather not get into battles with overprotective parents and deal with upset children needlessly.

Parents need to promote resilience before schools are in a position to make much difference, but overall they don’t seem to be doing that.

I wonder if that's where good teaching/mentors and sports coaches really come into their own? And if you don't have those people there supporting a loss, helping you to get back up again, then yes competition for competition's sake is not healthy.

Live in Canada and here it is a different mentality

No student of the week awards, etc.

I think that's a good thing.

We're raising a certificate for wiping your arse generation enough as it is

Is there more meaningful competition in Canada? Would be interested to hear more