Would you let your child miss sports day over anxiety?

[Thepeopleversuswork]

My DD (15) hates competitive sport to the point of phobia. She's not unfit and does some exercise in her own time, but she hates the competitive pressure that gets put on kids at school who are bad at, or even just average at, games at school. Her school is really big on certain sports.

She's in a 'house' with a bunch of particularly competitive girls for sports day who she thinks don't like her and have unilaterally assigned her to do a particular running race which she's not comfortable with and she feels she's being set up to fail so they can pick on her for being shit.

I'm in two minds about how to handle this: I'm not a fan of encouraging children to sit things out if they are difficult and am generally a firm believer in the idea that tackling hard things and surviving them builds resilience. But her aversion to this is really extreme and there seems to be a slightly bullying edge to the approach these girls are taking. I sympathise as I also loathed the culture around PE at school and the 'all or nothing' approach to competing. It's very alienating for children who aren't good at games or just don't prioritise them.

She's begged me to allow her to pull a sickie for sports day. I've suggested speaking to her form teacher to allow her to be put in a different group but she's adamant that it will be obvious why this has happened.

Would you let your child sit this out?

Completely - the big secondary school I work in no longer has a compulsory sports day, instead a 'festival of sport' that children can sign up for. The school has a brilliant sporting reputation so it certainly hasn't harmed the PE department.

I was your daughter - a non competitive person in a very sporty and competitive school, with a number of 'mean girls'. We had 2 x Sports days per year for year 7, 8 and 9 and they were effectively ritual humiliation. Given that I, along with a few others, was always the last picked for teams in every pe lesson, putting myself through it in front of the whole year group was hell. I could play badminton and swam fairly well (distance not speed) but the competitive nature of these days zapped it of any enjoyment, knowing i would be the one laughed about and blamed for any losses.

My mum kindly allowed me to 'have an appointment' or 'be ill' appropriately (as had her own mother for her). I was so grateful to her for sparing me, what was an excessively unpleasant experience and the precursor to another round of bullying (about which school did nothing). It was always expected that I attend at all other times, and I never skived off.

I don't feel that it has hampered my adult life, resilience or any of the other crap that is said.

Let her stay off, and I bet she will be very grateful

My daughter was sporty but hated and wasn’t good at maths and tried to get out of going to maths, was anxious, sick but I couldn’t say you can’t go

My daughter hated sports day but went to PE lessons every week.
Schools don't have a competitive Maths day in front of the whole school.

If you had any doubts about your decision OP, the quality of the responses telling you to send her in should persuade you to keep her off!

I was at school in the 80s too. PE teachers were definitely a sadistic bunch back then! 🙁

Absolutely! I absolutely HATED sports at school, but once I'd left I found my own forms of exercise that I did enjoy, and until I became disabled was really fit, so it's not like sport in school has to put you off for life.

I went through something very similar back in the 90s. We had to do heats for sports day during a PE lesson, with the winners/runners up competing on the day. I was truly awful at all aspects of PE, but on the day of the heats the mean girl clique rounded up the other girls in my heat, and they all made sure they went behind me. I won the heat by default because they made sure they were all slow enough to stay behind me. They also laughed at me the entire way round the athletics track. If the PE teachers realised what had happened, they didn’t show it; it must have caused some raised eyebrows that I won the heat, as I definitely wasn’t a race winning girl.

On sports day itself, the same group cheered me on, but as “mean” cheering, accompanied by lots of laughter. It was horrible, but it hadn't occurred to me that I could even ask to stay at home that day. I learned nothing from the day, and just felt miserable. The sniggers and taunts lasted for a while afterwards. Whilst I certainly have built resilience over the years, I don’t think this contributed in any way.

The thing about struggling with PE is that it’s obvious to everyone. If you’re struggling with maths or geography it’s easier to fly under the radar amongst your peers, as they don’t always see the challenges you’re facing.

I moved on from my sports day worries and now do go to the gym regularly and enjoy being fit. I think the difference is that I can choose what I do, and am not contributing to a team or a points-based scoring system, so can get on quietly. I was also lucky that although I was terrible at PE (and art!), I was very academic, so did experience success that way.

As for the mean girl clique and their cronies, I’m glad I haven’t seen any of them since I went to university.

Because of all of this, I would absolutely let my DD stay at home on that day if she were in your DD’s position. Whatever you and your DD decide, I hope everything goes well for her. You sound like the loveliest, supportive mum.

General advice is to not encourage avoidance for anxiety… however, dd1 hates sport and even more so competing in sport. Her school allowed dc to choose to stay in school or sign up for sports day - which I really appreciated for her as she was much happier. At 15 I’d totally let her skip it.

As a sports coach and some one who loved sports of most kinds I would let her give it a miss. Bullying has many guises and sport should never be about causing upset and anxiety.

My problem with just missing the day is that it gives the impression that it is only worth taking part in a race if you are have a chance of winning or doing well. In any competitive race, someone has to come last.

The OP’s daughter obviously feels that she is being picked on. That may or may not be true. The other girls might genuinely have chosen her to do the 800m for good reasons - for example because they have a chance of winning the other events if one of them takes part, but none of them is any good at the 800m so they don’t expect to win that anyway.

I was good at athletics at school - and was the house captain for a couple of years (including the summer of 76) meaning that I picked my house’s team for each event. My decisions were based entirely on maximising our chances of winning.

Although I was good at athletics, I also have a lot of experience of losing! I always took part in athletics competitions against neighbouring schools and my best events were hurdles, 100m, 200m, 400m, long jump, and relay. In addition to doing one or more of those, I was often asked to do the 1500m and/or one of the throwing events as well, because we usually didn’t have enough people for those. I always came last in those events, but by coming last I earned 1 point for the school so it was worth it.

I also remember a house swimming competition where for some unknown reason I was picked as my house’s representative for the freestyle race, despite making clear that I couldn’t do front crawl. I swam breast stroke for the entire race and obviously came last. But I had earned a point for my house and we wouldn’t have had that point if no one had competed. I don’t remember anyone laughing at me or criticising me for my performance.

Personally I would encourage my daughter to compete, and to ask her friends to watch and to cheer her on as she is running round the track.

It doesn't. The DD is asking to stay off because of a near-phobia of competitive sports and bullying concerns. The examples you give from your own life don't feature either of those.

Same.

There's anxiety on the one hand, and then there's humiliation and bullying on the other hand.

I've done physical challenges in life that I've been crap at, and I've enjoyed (or at least endured) pushing myself out of my comfort zone, but I've generally done them on my own or with a friend or group of friends who are encouraging and supportive. Including one egging me on to finish a 10k when I was just getting back into running after DC1 when I would definitely have given up if left to my own devices. This sort of experience is character building and does build resilience.

Being mocked by your teenage peers... nah. Nothing character building about that. It's just traumatic and has long lasting effects. In this case, you promote your DD's welfare by sparing her this experience.

Ah yes - a good bit of old fashioned bullying is certainly 'character building'.

🙄

Yes, let her. I had a similar predicament a few years ago and decided in the end to let her stay off ‘sick’. Fast forward to the next year, there was no anxiety, she didn’t say one word about staying off, and participated in Sports Day no problem. But if she has asked to stay off again, I would have let her

Sports day means bugger all for most 15 year old's other than an annoyance.
It wasn't compulsory when i was at school but i wouldn't have done it anyway.
My 3 kids who have now left school had the option, and i would have happily let them have a sickie.
All this 'it's character building ' crap is rubbish if a kid hates it and it causes anxiety , another year and she never has to do a sports day ever again ,it will have zilch effect on her life not doing it this time.
Have a nice day off together instead .

wrinklycactus- it certainly is - by the manner in which it is dealt with - your
post describing exactly how and why young people cannot deal with bullying,
difference of opinion, whilst people like you eyeroll and excuse
it is indeed character building, be it ‘old fashioned’ or not ; if you want namby pamby kids, you carry on !?

and which is PRECISELY what you are attempting !!

Refusing to do something you dislike just because a bully told you to is dealing with bullying.

I second this! For me its more important to develop a healthy relationship with sport and exercise for your DD, and this miserable mean girls sports day shtick might push her completely the other way!

@Thepeopleversuswork I think you should send her.

Life is full of things we are uncomfortable with and at age15 I would expect her to be able to get over it.
So she didn't get her choice of sports? Someone had to do it, opting out & claiming anxiety is the wrong choice. She'll have exams soon, then she will hit college/ uni or the workplace. There, she will have to suck it up again and again and again.

Teach her now, in a safe environment, that she can’t always have everything her way. I assume your DD has told the other girls that she's not good at 800m. So give her the strength to do it. If she doesn't attend, she'll be teased - if she participates, she has some leverage of I told you so. Teach her to be strong, not weak. Tech her to hold her head high and be a graceful about making the effort and participate.

This is a great point. A teenage girl's relationship with exercise is such an important thing. Doing anything to associate it with bullying and humiliation is a real risk.

I hated sports day as a child, parent and teacher; I would let a child miss it if they wanted!

Speaking from experience, it really doesn’t go down well with peers when girls skive off and leave others to do the events (as many do for every single house sports events). And it’s not fair on others who also hate sports day and would choose not to do it given a chance.

If I was your daughter, I’d remind the others that she is willing to do other events, but really doesn’t want to do the 800m. She can either stand her ground and refuse to do the 800m (but still attend and cheer on team mates), or she can say she’ll do the 800m but tell her peers she will likely come last and is only doing it to get a point for the team and to save others from doing it. She may actually get kudos taking that approach. The 800m is usually okay, as it doesn’t tend to have lots of spectators (they tend to watch other things). Tell her to do it with a smile on her face as she crosses the finish line, and I’m fairly sure she will get a big clap even if she comes last (that’s what happens at ours). It’s hard but is a good life lesson. Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to.