Do you think children feel under pressure to cheat at sport? Your views please!

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello.

We're fascinated by this news story today, suggesting that two-thirds of UK children feel under pressure to cheat at sports because of a "win-at-all-costs" culture.

Also, according to a survey commissioned for the MCC and the Cricket Foundation, as many as one in 20 of the children questioned said they'd be proud to have arrived at victory dishonestly.

Is this something you've noticed? Do your children think it's OK to trip, foul, dive, deliberately mis-score etc etc, all in the name of winning? And/or do they feel under pressure to cheat in this way when they're playing competitive sport?

Please do tell!

I think the someone (the media?) has blown this out of proportion. I asked my children about this & they both said "no-one wants to play with a cheat", so in the playground there is a real sense of right & wrong, and playing by the rules is very important.
Notice too that in the original questionaire asked if children would be tempted to cheat if they knew they could get away with it . That question would be answered differently if they were simply asked "would you cheat?"

I think it's a big fat load of hairy bollocks, caused by crap survey methodology and leading questions.

They'll give everyone a medal round here, even if you fall over and don't even finish. I haven't seen anything less like competition than British school kids playing sport since about 1975.

What a crap and meaningless survey.

What a crap article. Esp given this quote "The majority of children said they felt the pressure to win came from other children and their teammates". So the article isn't about a win at all costs culture, it's about normal peer pressure.

DS plays football at academy level. There is almost zero focus on winning,it's all about how they play the game. Often they aren't really aware whether they have won or lost, especially as the teams are mixed around and there are 4 games on a day. Having said this, DS is v competitive by nature, and his primary school are one of the few that have a rostrum and awards for sports day, which he loves.

DS plays no competitive sport, it isn't really his thing at the moment (aged 7), but he saw this on Newsround and was outraged.

The thought of cheating had him angry and cross: "Cheating isn't playing fair! The whole point of games is to play fair."