Whats wrong with competitiveness?

[polarfox]

My DS is not achieving greatly on the academic front- he's bright but sadly not interested, it may change in the future, doesnt really matter if it doesnt either.

However he is gifted in sports, a natural. He excels in many sports and really enjoys them, so I take him to various clubs.

However, his primary (and most others in the vicinity, from what I gather) do not encourage competitions, in any type or form - rather they do but they all win( Sports Day is always a fiasco with team games that are just laughable!!), so he nevers gets his recognition , which is crucial really for his self confidence at school.

Similarly, they don't seem to focus on any academic competitiveness for the achievers on the academic front.

It's all so strange, sort of unreal- kids need to know what they genuinely good at, how to win gracefully, lose gracefully, what they need to work ay etc..

How did it all come to this? Do you think it will change?

I don't think my daughter expects praise every time she does well, but if a child sees another child being praised for not acheiving very much then they are bound to think "why should I bother".

Her teacher does rate effort higher than acheivement though so she knows that she must always try hard at whatever she does. The school also recognises that different children have strengths in different areas - some are sporting, some are musical, some are academic etc.

I agree with the poster that in the harsh world of work acheivement is rewarded far more so than effort - for example commission on sales, hitting targets etc. In fact, nearly every enterprise I can think of is target driven.

I think the work thing cuts both ways - as an employer I would value a good co-operative team worker above a hyper competitive person who always wants to out do their co-workers.

Agree sales can be a bit different, but most jobs are about working effectively with others to achieve good results, I would say.

the other problem is this:

child A is a high achiever. She does well academically without too much effort. she behaves in school because she enjoys it

child B is less so. She struggles with work and often messes around as she finds school boring

Child B is praised often when she sits still and when she doesn't mess around.
Child A sees this. she doesn't get praised for sitting still because she already sits still every day.

praise, if given, needs to be given privately. How do you explain to Child A why she has to sit still and behave and gets no praise/reward for it, and yet child B who is generally "naughty" gets rewarded and praised for doing things she ought to do anyway and that the rest of the class already do?

This is why I object to sticker charts and happy faces and all the rest of it in schools.

It works with sports too. Those who are rewarded for effort you may well think deserve it. But those who don't need to put much effort in then won't get praised, even if they have done well.
so do you praise on effort or results?

if you praise on results then those who put a lot of effort in but achieve little don't get praised

children need to learn that the value in doing things is to themselves. That they are capable of deciding for themselves whether they did a good job and that they should be proud of themselves and enjoy having done something well.

ds1 gets angry with me if people tell him he has done well at things sometimes. Often it is because he has put little effort in and actually doesn't like the work he has produced. someone then telling him he has done great is annoying to him because in his mind he hasn't and surely it's up to him to value his own work?

In dd2's reception class I remember all the very naughtiest boys dominated the awards for the first term or more. Some parents were really fed up and I could see why. It led to a friend of dd's coming up with some very amusing explanations of why this should be. She said things like "Johnnie (in trouble for biting and hitting and now Star of the Week) must just be very good when he is working by himself with the teacher."
I can see why the teachers did it that way but it was also a bit ridiculous and it made the goody goodies confused...

Problem with praise in private is that I think sticker charts and praise are really necessary in the primary classroom. Each time a child is rewarded it sends a reinforcing message about correct behaviour to all in the class. I think it would be much harder to create discipline in a class if all praise and censure was private. You know what I mean, "who is sitting up nice and straight on the mat? Oh yes look, Lily is sitting beautifully, who else can sit beautifully?" etc etc.

There is consensus that all children should be praised but can this really be done without leading to competitiveness? I think in the end we are all a bit competitive - I've tried very hard to not encourage it in my children but they still persist in measuring their achievements against others and it might not be cutthroat but it pervades working life. being good at your job is necessarily relative to how others perform - thats how you get a standard.

i don't agree.

if the "naughty" kid is rewarded very publicly for sitting nicely then the children who always sit nicely are unhappy.
it also shows them that there is no point sitting nicely. after all, if you're naughty you get more rewards.

I don't disagree thisisyesterday -thats what I thought I meant in my first bit (sorry it wasn't clear!)
Regards the carpet example I just meant that I thought praise had to be open, not in private, to reinforce expected behaviour.

Compete in the work place as a woman. Earn enough to pay school fees and then you can ensure your child has the proper environment with competition to suit him. Pity you have to pay though.

"if the "naughty" kid is rewarded very publicly for sitting nicely then the children who always sit nicely are unhappy.
it also shows them that there is no point sitting nicely. after all, if you're naughty you get more rewards."

Funnily enough DD and one of her friends were talking about this only yesterday. DD is in year 6 and has only been star of the month once (in year 1). Her friend has never been star of the month. Both are well behaved at school and get on with their work. Friend said that only the naughty children get it because they decide to behave themselves for a couple of weeks.

exactly the problem bunbaker. which is why i think that any praise given needs to be given to the child it is for, and not bandied around the whole class.

at ds1's school they each have a sticker chart. it stays in their drawer. when they do something good, or put a lot of effort in they get a sticker to put on their chart.
it reinforces good behaviour, without the rest of the class thinking "but i do that all the time and haven't had a sticker for it"

xenia... jus tlike that eh??? i have never had a profession. I had children early and plan to retrain when they are at school. imagine how many years it would tke for me to retrain, then work my way up to earn enough to afford private schooling for 3 children!!! they'd have left school by the time i was earning enough.

i wonder what world you live in sometimes, i really do

bunbaker and thisisyesterday funny you should say that. My DD is a brillianly behaved child- only once has she got an award (guilt of teacher??!!) whereas the 2 very naughty kids in her class (by everyones admission) have stickers coming out their ears!!

And also to illustrate the reason why I feel that this non competitive climate is getting far fetched, on top of my exoerience in my above post re:names out of the hat to represent the school in sports events, I have now heard of an even worse example. Football players in near by school change teams at half time, so that whatever the result they would be part of the winning team! (no wonder we have to buy professional footballers from abroad then!)

Xenia you are right in that private schools do seem to have more of competitive nature in them, which is why I think children that attend them seem to be more confident individuals. But we should not have to pay for something that is so easily doable in all the schools......

you hear this a lot, but it is also a bit of a myth.

Our primary is not like that.

I can see why you need to have a reasonable amount of non-competitive (or less-competitive) sport -- because you want children (and the adults they will become) to enjoy sport and remain active whether or not they are any good at it, and if they are always finishing last in competitive events then that's not likely to happen, in the same way that the less-academic are not going to spend hours of their adulthood solving quadratic equations for fun.

But there needs to be a balance between that and recognising the talents of children who are gifted at sport. And I certainly think that those picked to represent the school at sport should be chosen on ability rather than at random.

at xenia's comment.

"Proper environment with competition to suit him".

"Friend said that only the naughty children get it because they decide to behave themselves for a couple of weeks."

Can you tactfully/age appropriately explain that it is much harder for some children to 'behave themselves' - I think its important even for little ones to understand that it isn't always (or even often) a matter of other children 'deciding' to behave or not behave.

I think comeptition in all areas is important, particularly in sport.

Yes, it's nice to win, but the far more important lesson to learn, is how to lose.

We all need to appreciate from an early age that taking part in competitions is fun.
That you have to give things a go. What's the saying? Be in it to win it?

Tell kids that it doesn't matter if you didn't win. You survived. You'll try again. Clap the person who did win.
You don;t have to be, probably can't be the best at everything, but it doesn't matter.

The thing is, though, competitive sport isn't fun if you always come last, and you know that you'll come last, and you've spent years coming last every single time, and coming even second-to-last is a seemingly unattainable goal, and all the sport you do is competitive so you never get to do anything else. Yes, you've learned pretty comprehensively how to lose at sport by the time you've finished school, but the chances of your ever doing anything sporting again voluntarily are slim to nil and there are knock-on effects on health.

You do need to introduce non-sporty children to non-competitive sport and find something that they can enjoy. But you also need to introduce children to competitive sport as well, and you need to find the right balance between the two.

Very well put, ProfessorLayton.

I agree Takver.

I have a friend with an autistic DS, he struggles academically, socially and physically. But he competes in sports day, school plays, assemblies etc because all of the children are included. What of him if only the most academic or sporty are ever chosen or recognised?

professorlayton - I agree that there needs to be a mix.

But I also think that we need to move away from the idea of competition meaning a race. Sure this is the baldest method of seeing who is 'best' and 'worst'.

But most competitions don't single out the individual who comes last.

Even the most competitive private schools aren't running races every day, twice a day. We're talking sports day once a year. I'm sure most children's self esteem should be able to survive losing one day a year. If it can't, we as parents are failing.

The rest of the time, it's about training, being in a team, representing your school, your house etc. If you're wing defence in the fourths, so what? You're still there, enjoying the match, enjoying being in the team, having a laugh, keeping fit. So what if the other side pound you?

It's the same with every music festival, art comp, house quiz etc. The point of them is the taking part.

At some point we all became so busy protecting our children from the horror of failure, that we forgot to teach them how to survive it. Resilience is, I feel, one of the absolutely best traits to have in life.

My eldest are still in nursery which is entirely uncompetitive which I think is great as they are twins, they have the natural competition between each other.

However I think my prep school handled this the best (left 16 years ago). I was very sporty, not very academic. Everyone played in matches, but there was still competition to get into the 'A' team, and movement between the 'A' and 'B' teams was very fluid, often 'B' team members would get trial matches with the 'A's or get taken along to their matches if they weren't playing. This stopped the feeling of the 'B's being the reject team.

In sports day, everyone did 3 events, the maximum you could do was 6 events, giving those who were sporty an oppurtunity to shine. Those who only had 3 events were then given a relay/assault course thing (the rest of us were very , it looked like a lot of fun), so they didn't get bored watching the sporty kids do more. It was also a team event, so we all shirts in our house colour and this also detracted from the individual competitiveness.

Academically each form had an achievement prize for the child who had done the best academically, and an effort prize for the child who had tried the hardest.

Personally I think competition is very healthy,and essential if you want to get any where in life. Though I completely understand why too much can be a very negative thing, I think a complete lack of it is even worse.

bambi I think you have hit the nail on the head.

Too much competition is wrong and I would not advocate it, but avoiding all competition, as some schools do, so that there are never any winners and losers, is far worse.

Yes - thats right.
Really agree about learning to fail also.

polarfox, it's just the kind of thing that costs not a penny (except the cost of rooting out left wing non competitive teachers with prejudices against children competing I suppose) that the state sector could introduce from the private sector.

Child A who succeeds but doesn't get a lot of praise at school usually knows they've done well. they are getting the highest marks in the class and AAAA in all school reports. No group of clever children does not know who is top of the class.

Most schools in the private sector (and I assume state too) will try to ensure every child has something they are good at.

Also children need to know if they're useless in objective terms too. If they've only ever had ticks and praise they might not realise they are likely to be the worst in the work place at most things. So they need a mixture of things - praise and knowing where they stand.

Most of us who are reasonably successful have failed over the years but it's how you pick yourself and deal with failure which seems to be the key to a more enduring success.

Children like their marks of success whatever they might be and you hope each one will find something at least that they can be good at.