One of the reasons that he did so well was that the boy who won most of the practice races appeared to develop stage fright on the day. It never occurred to me that a child would suddenly get stressed on the day and choose not to take part at all! Apparently Sports Day is very overwhelming for some kids, at least according to one of the mums I spoke to. Her little boy also felt unable to take part when he was in Junior Infants. It was a new experience and he just found it too daunting. Initially I wondered if I had been a very callous parent, blithely shipping off my child to this big new experience without parental support or without even asking him if he was nervous! Evidence suggested, however, that he had thoroughly enjoyed himself and risen to the occasion. So much so that after falling over during the sack race he still went on to win it!
Ok, enough boasting about my son's sporting talents...
The conversation with this lady then continued and the subject of the 'participation medals' came up. The youngest class gets participation medals for their very first Sports Day, which is kind of nice. On her son's race day, just before the last race, the school principal approached this Mum and her son and said that if he didn't at least line up for the last race, he wouldn't get a participation medal. That seemed fair enough to me, but the lady to whom I was talking was quite outraged by this and felt it was unfair to her son. At this point I should say that I have a lot of time for this lady and we would have a certain amount of views and opinions in common. But I absolutely can't understand where she is coming from on this! You allow your son not to participate and then get cross when he doesn't get a participation medal? Please tell me I am not alone in finding this bonkers!
The ecards picture above does have a good point - how is a child with this experience going to cope with life in 20 years from now, for example when starting a new job? They are being given permission to opt out of things that are new or unfamiliar, which are of course going to continue to be part of life.
A recent parenting course I did made me realise what a long term game parenting is. It's so easy to get caught up with the daily whirl of lunchoxes, doctors visits and laundry that you can lose sight of the big picture - ultimately we are aiming for our kids to become healthy adults who will, amongst other things, succeed in job interviews, have good relationships and be equipped to face the issues that life will throw at them. Equipping them needs to start now! I can understand the maternal instinct to protect a sensitive child, but ultimately allowing the child to opt out is surely doing them a disservice in the long run. 'Run' being that all that the kids really had to do to begin with to get that medal...
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