I'm letting my son bunk off a cross country run - what would you have done?

[tigermoth]

My 11 year old son's class has a 50 minute cross country run to do on Tuesday morning. His form teacher says they must run it, not walk it, no messing around.

My son is dreading it. He is not a runner. He is already finding it difficult to run to his lessons, getting there in time, though he has just about managed to avoid a detention. He says this is the hardest thing about his new secondary school. He is already getting a name for being a slow coach.

Dh and I do not want to put him through the humiliation of the cross country run. DS has plenty of exercise as he is cricket mad. He plays cricket every lunchtime at school and this weekend (as usual) he spent an hour each day at the cricket nets. It really is his sport. Running is not.

I have fond memories of my mother letting me miss the odd cookery lesson, as I hated them and got teased for being so impractical. It really made a difference to my settling in at big school.

So, dh and I are doing the same for our son, and have told him we will send in a note to say he has a doctor's appointment on the morning of the run. Apparently the run is not an occasional, not weekly event.

Just wondered what people feel about this decision? don't mind if you disagree with me, just interested to know the consensus of opinion here.

just to clarify, 'the run is an occasional, not weekly event' - excuse slip of my typing fingers!

I agree, if he hates it, why make him do it, though I suppose you could be said to be undermining schools authority and respect, but you know your child and his happiness at school is important.

I would do the same as you tigermoth but i got slated here once for encouraging my well behaved dd to take her time eating dinner so she didnt have to spend as long with the rest of the school lining up in hte playground as a punishment for a couple of boys messing around.

I don't know if he is unfit compared to other children. He does lots of reglar exercise, but is chubby. He has always been slow getting himself ready, it's part personality, part physical ability.
I have to dash off now, but will lurk from work!

This is a hard one, TM. I have so much sympathy for him - the school cross country run is purgatory for most children and it baffles me why schools put kids through it. I can remember people vomiting as they pounded through the streets of uptown Catford on our "cross-country" runs, with Menopause Mary, the SCARY gym mistress, baying in the distance for blood.
As you say, he gets lots of exercise of his choice, and you all know the likely miserable outcome of Tuesday morning for him. I think a doctor's appointment is a diplomatic and kind way out for him, but...well, you know what I'm going to say, don't you ...your ds knows you are lying to the school, will he ask you to do this again for other stuff he doesn't like, will he ever respect his duped gym teacher again, etc, etc.
MUCH better to do what I did and somehow, magically, engineer a genuine nasty cold for your son to prevent him being utterly humiliated at sports day. I was lucky and ds caught his own virus...I suggest leaving yours out in the garden in a wheelbarrow of water tonight. Voila! No run for ds and your conscience 100% clear.

hmmm

well you never know he might not have done so badly...and it could have given his confidence a boost. I am sure they would have let him walk bits of it.

but probably not the best person to ask as I enjoyed cross country and so does dd1. I'll go away now

But you have proper country to run across Enid. Not dog-poo studded urban parkland full of jeering truants!

yes true

we used to do it in the snow too with gym knickers and vest (but they let us wear gloves, big of them)

Lordy no, let him off. My parents always wrote me letters excusing me from PE when I asked them too - it meant I was always honest with them and never had to 'forge' letters like a lot of my friends did. Lots of people HATE PE - doesn't mean they will hate exercise when they are older.

why do kids hate pe?

new thread started

Message withdrawn

oh tigermoth a really tricky one...
just the very thought of a cross country run makes my blood run cold. what's the point, exactly? IMO it is just pure madness, when we should be encouraging children to exercise and when obesity is rife, to put so much emphasis on making exercise in school such a deeply unpleasant experience. Is it supposed to be character building or something? Well it's not - it's stupid and it's damaging. I loathed this kind of thing when I was a child and left school with the strong feeling that sport/exercise was not for me - reinforced by several years of school PE. It took me several years to realise that I had been taight badly by sadistic and stupid PE teachers with not the slightest notion of how to teach their subject properly. not everyone likes to run, and exercise can be enjoyable, not that you would think it from the way it was taught at my school.
BUT - that said, it is probably not a good lesson to teach your son that he can opt out of things that he doesn't enjoy. Can you take any comfort from the fact that before too long he will be just buking off anyway and not telling you?

sceur , good post, good compromise

Yes, agree with Secur - showing support for the child without taking the situation off him completely

As one of those children who hated crosscountry but not cool enough to bunk off and have a fag like many of the girls, I really sympathise with your son.
I can also totally empathise with your decision to allow him a small break, making school life a little bit easier to cope with.
However as no one else has wanted to/chosen to see it from the other side, happy to risk my mumsnet neck and stick it out a bit..

Whilst it may not seem a big deal - the odd one off event - you are allowing your son to get out of an activity for the simple reason that he doesn?t like it. Not only are you allowing him to back out of it, but are helping him do this by lying to his teachers. Is this really the message you want to give out to your son? To me it could be seen as a really bad way of dealing with a problem - avoiding it and then showing total lack of respect for the school/teachers by lying to them. Sure, you will score brownie points with your son and he will be a little bit happier but have you really made things better? Are you going to write a letter for every cross country from now on?? Each year?? They are not stupid and I bet someone will cotton on as it will stand out a mile in his record.
I used to moan like mad about PE, wanting to get out of tests and claiming tummy aches, fallling out with my friends/splitting up with a boyfriend, and pleading with my mum to let me bunk off. Not once did she let me and I really respect her for it as it did teach me to face up to things, never back out/lie yourself out of a corner. Deal with life full on. I remember not wanting to go to school because I was being mildly bullied by a couple of girls. Mum made me go to school and then phoned up my form teacher (unknown to me then - found out much later) to get her to sort it all out for me.
I just wonder if explaining to your son that all of us do things in life that we would rather avoid but that it is only occasional and it won?t kill him. There are no physical reasons why he cannot take part and I bet that there are several other boys that feel the same. Perhaps it might even be an opportunity to make a couple of allies and jog around with them. If he is getting really upset about it, you should speak to the school and make sure they are aware of how unhappy he is and ask them for their positive support and encouragement. Imagine how he will feel after going round, not wanting to do it but sticking with it and doing it anyway. Especially if you make it a big deal and congratulate him for it - special tea etc. We all have difficult trials in life and he needs your support facing them not your support in wimping out. Cross country today - tricky maths lesson with "nasty" teacher tomorrow?

I knwo it is probably too late, you ahve made your decision and are sticking by it. Fair enough. We all bring up our children as best as we can and all have different approaches. You did ask for opinions and hope mine doesn?t offend or seem too holier than thou. I am a terrible parent much of the time but do believe in telling the truth and feel that parents should help their children learn how to deal with difficult situations by example. I am really really sorry. Will hide and lurk again..

If it was me and it has been as DS is non sporty...
I'd see the teacher and explain it as you explained it to us. If they were really stone wall cold and unhelpful I'd pull him out, however wefound that if ds gave it a go, the teachers were more supportive and it ended up being a really positive experience so much so that he now plays rugby and cricket for his school and loves it, also you would be giving him a life skill of dealing with an issue in a calm and reasoned way. ducking out without attempting to cut a better deal for him first would be a mistake IMHO

I would let him out of it, my mum never did, so I just used to skip the whole day and end up in trouble. Much rather have 5 hours detention than 1 hour hideous CC!

I wasn't sporty, could never run, hated it, was the skinniest child in the world so had pathetic skinny ankles that used to collapse under me and I felt the cold 10x worse than anyone else (or so it felt to me! blue and orange blotchy knees and completely white lips etc). I was the only person in the school who didn't have to run the 800m, 1500m and cross country because it clearly just wasn't going to happen. I think the school engineered extra cello practice or something for me instead.
Had I been forced to do it I would NEVER have finished it, or finished it 2 hours later than everyone else, and what would have been the point? Humiliation? Doing something you have no talent for/ability to do just because it was felt everyone should do it? I did plenty of other things instead (mostly music) and played all other games (v badly) and I don't feel I missed out on any life lessons from not doing cross country!
Keep him off, tell your teachers he will cheer from the sidelines instead.

Having bared my soul on the PE thread, I now feel violently against all PE lessons for those who don't enjoy them and would say to you that, as long as you know your ds is getting plenty of exercise outside school and he is not fat, then do everything you can to spare him the humiliation many of us had to endure during PE lessons.

PE is legalised torture for children.

funnily enough I didn't mind pe lessons per se, even though I was never picked for any sort of team whatsoever because I was so crap. but maybe that is because I was always in all girls schools which I guess is probably less harsh than mixed in terms of being teased for being crap at school.
At my school you got more kudos for having cool clothes than playing lacrosse, and lets face it, all those really excellent sporty healthy girls looked pretty chunky in a ra-ra skirt!

sorry - teased for being crap at PE I mean

PPH, my school was an all girls school too. Not being picked for a team was still humilating. Mind you, it was a comp (your school sounds like a private one?) and being crap at PE made you a target for teasing just as mcuh as being intelligent made you a target for bullies.

Any wonder I want to send my children to private schools?