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?

Go to www.dofe.org for all the details - sound ideal for your DS. Unfortunately I didn't know he was only 10 - you have to be 14 to do Duke of Edinburgh. Worth showing him though.

Cory my DS has done D of E too and is just about to finish his gold. I didn't mention it in my previous post as you have to be 14 to start and your DS is younger. The various sections for each award are: www.dofe.org/go/doing/

As you will see from the above link D of E isn't all about physical things:
The expedition section does involve a physical aspect but the amount carried can be adapted I believe if there is a physical reason why it is not possible.
The physical section has a wide range of activities from archery, swimming, yoga, fitness to team sports to cover all abilities.

The skill section and volunteering section too is very varied and again something for everyone. At bronze level you do one section for 6 months and the rest for 3 months.
IMO D of E shows a certain level of commitment and stamina as the higher levels can take a minimum of 12 months. Many Mumsnetters may disagree with me but D of E is an area where those who do not shine at school can achieve!

There's also the question of whether children are born or made. There's a Sunday Times journalist who wrote about the top young tabletennis players all being within 5 streets of his childhood home and he was one. Itw as really solely because the top UK trainer lived there and trained them all at and after school. iT wasn't that just one primary int he UK happened to have people with the right length of arm for table tennis. There's a lot of truth in that.

I am sure one reason our children have masses of music exams passed at higher grades than most over the years is not just any innate talent but simply parental effort and enthusiasm in that area. If I were into needlework or sport they might be made marvellous at those things too. I'm not saying the finest silk can always be made from the worst of sow's ears or whatever but don't discount assisting them to excel in something. It might not be the something you would have picked - my daughters are and were also very sporty and I doubt they got that from me. One child writes complicated wikipedia entries.

So if a child is not academic and not sporty as in the cory example there must be some things he's good at. Is it not academic because of low IQ or lack of effort? Lots of people who do badly at school do well in life, not most and it does hamper you but some do. he might have enthusiasm and effort and drive which are just as important. Would he be interested in setting up some tiny business and selling things in his early teens for example?

out of school stuff like helping the poor and all the activities around churches, mosques and synagogues etc tend to have things chidlren can do which don't involve the things mentioned above like sport and academics.

Thanks all for helpful suggestions, I'll bear those in mind. Volunteering might well be the way to go when he is older- being useful to somebody else sounds exactly the sort of thing that would boost his confidence. I'll bear that D of E scheme in mind.

I don't think he has unusually low IQ- he's sensible enough when you talk to him- but he is unfortunate in combining extreme difficulties at fine motor control (which holds him back academically) with physical problems which means he can't really do well at sports either. He struggles with basic everyday tasks and often missed school due to chronic condition.

His sister is in the same situation physically, but has strong intellectual abilities to make up for it, so she gets to feel good about herself for a sizeable part of the school day.

For ds, school is just one long chain of seeing how he can't do what the other children can do. It started in Reception and hasn't really got any better since. There is just nothing about the experience that makes him feel good about himself; the best he gets is seeing other people being kind to him and making allowances. Practical things are even more difficult for him as academic stuff.

I do wish he could find that one thing that everybody is supposed to be good at. I can't see it being business drive: his self-confidence is so low he would never assume anyone wanted to buy what he had to sell. Effort and drive is not something he has ever shown- but that may be precisely because he has never yet been good at anything.

He is a kind person, that I do know- but that doesn't really give you many rewards. Though it does perhaps suggest that your ideas of volunteering might be the right thing to look into.

we are all mildly dyspraxic and cackchanded in my family and a fair few of us have inherited a joint disorder that makes everyday life tricky, but ds is the first who has not been able to compensate by being either academically successful or musical

I do try very hard to get through to him about trying different things, but the problem is that he is so completely despondent that he just assumes he won't be able to do anything else either, because "I've never been any good at things so far"

sorry for hi-jack btw- let's get back to where we were

Pity he's not carefree about it. Loads of children put in little effort and aren't much good at things but they couldn't care less. I wonder how his mind set could be changed so it didn't matter a jot how he fares because internally he's happy.

Yes, I think you're right, Xenia, a lot of it is about how much he cares. Difficult to do anything about- you can't really turn somebody into something they are not. He was happier and more carefree while he was still able to do sports with the other boys, but now that has been taken from him, he does brood.

He would like the whole family to pretend that hard work and success are things that nobody sensible cares about, but that isn't really possible- the rest of us do care.

Pmsl @ "I was academic, but didn't need to compete, good grades were enough" :o

Grades are competition, getting the high grades is winning.

At least give sporty but non-academic kids who always lose that competition a chance to win at what they're good at.

Or remove all competition for everyone so that children are never compared against one another.

At the moment all you have is a system that says one form of achievement is worth recognition while another is not.

I think if families can talk about what matters in life (which isn't money and success for most of us although that can ease life's path) and the child has a moral basis whether a religion or otherwise, which says it is your internal mental health, your relationships to others and the like that counts then that can make the not successful child's lot easier. I value the independent thought of my children and if that view point is communist, right or left wing I don't mind as long as they have views. I think I care more that they have opinions and work out their own aims in life than what precise career they might carry out.

The reason mankind is here is because we trumphed over the neanderthals or whatever. That may in part have been through co-operation but it will also have been competition and it's why we here today are here not genetically defective ancestors who died out too so we would expect an element of competition amongst most peoples at all times.

Hate to say this, Xenia, after you've been so kind, but my children are genetically defective and would no doubt have died at an early age in the Neanderthal era

I quite like them though

Of course they're not. I'm just saying the way the human race has developed is that eg eevn today lots of the miscarriages women have are babie with some problem or other. Nature still tries to eliminate what may not help us survive. However we need a very broad genetic pool to have a fit human race so it's by no means a simple thing.

I suppose my point was simply we have had for about 3 million years survival of the fittest so it's not surprising in lots of areas competition remains important and that all societies religions and cultures which have tried to stamp it out -w hether order of nuns or communist china etc have largely failed.