Probably a dreaded day for most blokes for a variety of reasons as when you haven’t got one, you send cards you regret sending and live in fear of rejection and when you have got one, you have to play the game with flowers, chocs and all that stuff.
I took mine to The Spread Eagle (!) at Gailey, usually one of my favourite haunts but on this occasion let me down with poor intransigent service, mainly as they had run out of certain items of the St.Valentine’s menu and wouldn’t swap for something more basic “…and what the lady wants”.
It really naffs me off when the damn staff either aren’t empowered or want to cling to the bloody rules regarding providing an experience suitable for the occasion. Consequently, I’ll be sharpening the pencil to Mr. Marston. At least I’ll be able to point out the inadequacies of their training programme and bullying HR department and that make me feel better.
Hope your “Day” went better chaps.
Did you see that dimwit headmaster who banned valentine’s cards at his school for fear that the children would experience “rejection trauma”? Where the hell are we going in this country with numpties as obtuse as this guy in positions of such importance, governing the education of our kids? And quite apart from anything else, where is the “rejection” in receiving a valentine’s card?!! If you don’t get one, it ain’t rejection .. you just don’t get one.
This is just so typical of the idiots in charge in education these days – who are quite happy for a GCSE English student to pass even when they make 47 grammatical or spelling mistakes in an essay; quite happy for faith schools to be able to opt out of essential sex and relationship lessons and preach homosexuality is a sin and a pregnant teenager will be eternally damned …. but send a valentine’s card? Stop traumatising our pupils! String the bastards up!
And don’t even get me started on “non-competitive” sports days ….
Okay. Tell me about non-competitive sports days then and get it off your chest!
Good rant this though! I agree with you about our education system – its one of the things that’s letting the country down!
Okay – you asked!! What follows is edited from a letter I sent to my son’s head teacher last month …
… An increasing personal concern surrounds the way the issues of winning and losing seem to be addressed in schools.
I feel quite strongly that the issue, nationally, is currently treated in an over-simplified way. There is much residual work I need to do as a parent, which is unnecessary and should be addressed if the children are to understand how “competition” relates to them and to life in general.
I am encountering behaviour that, in dealing with same, risks putting me at apparent odds with what my kids schools are trying to achieve.
Now I support whole-heartedly the idea of impressing on children that winning and losing is not everything, that everyone has potential, and that positive reinforcement and support are more appropriate than “you won, you lost, get over it”.
Alongside that I strongly believe that two of the most important lessons in life are a) how to lose and b) how to win – Rudyard Kipling and all that.
How to learn from losing and how it felt; how to learn from winning and how you behaved – how that behaviour affected others, your team-mates or friends, your competitors. Our ability to deal with this is a barometer of how we grow as people.
This is where things appear to be being missed.
Under- 7′s could not hold a discussion with me about what a sense of self-worth means and how they arrive at one – but they most definitely have one.
Among their peers, kudos and status are derived from being the best, the fastest, scoring the goals etc.
In the child’s world there are only absolutes – one is either the best or is “rubbish”. Shades of grey have yet to make much of an impression.
And rewards are understood in terms of carrot and stick – if one does or behaves well, one is rewarded.
The side-effects of this are a lack of patience with kids who may not be as talented; a lack of respect for authority, if somebody suggests they have broken the rules or lost; and an inability to feel good if they do not win, or to understand why a sticker is awarded for not winning.
These issues need to be addressed more comprehensively. It seems to me they receive little attention.
As a parent though, one is faced with these every day.
My kids win stickers, much as we used to get silver stars – except the approach is not consistent. Some teachers seem to distribute them like water and the effect is lost, the sticker forgotten. Boy arrived home yesterday with sticker for “sitting nicely”….
Attending out of school events, such as kids parties etc, it is evident that the children who seem to exhibit the worst behaviour when they lose, (or win) are those we know from my son’s school, where the non-competitive policy is in force.
When I was involved last weekend an the event at the school, one child threw a Scalextric car at a man he did not know because I said his friend was the winner of the race.
There were quite a few tantrums when children were not successful, or made mistakes, despite their being told to have a second go and try again.
Trying again to do better seemed an alien concept to many.
They seem least equipped to understand that they are not the best at everything, that they will come second more often than not, and that opponents deserve respect. They do not seem to be being shown the whole picture – only the distasteful aspects of ultra-competitiveness are addressed – or rather are merely cut out and the core issues thus avoided.
Striving to do one’s best every time is equally as important as “taking part”, because only that way will you ensure you make the best use of your talent.
Taking part and not trying is counter-productive, disrespectful to others and a waste of everyone’s time.
There are great positives to be enjoyed from winning; great lessons to be learned from losing. Only by making mistakes do we learn how to do a lot of things properly.
As long as the right lessons are learned, surely there can be no harm done.
When my daughter moved schoollast autumn, she had early issues dealing with a teacher whose approach was blunt and straight forward, who told her straight if she made a mistake. Suddenly the teacher recognition she was used to and had come to crave, was not there. Having never encountered this before from a teacher, it became a real issue for her and there were sleepless nights.
As well as obviously being concerned, I was angry because I felt she would have been prepared for this had she understood that not everything in the garden is fluffy all the time.
People will get shouted at in life – we need to impress the lesson that it is not terminal, that it is just behaviour. It does not mean that we are no longer valued, respected, loved.
People will win and lose in life – we need to know how to deal with it, to have experienced it.
Kids’ tears and tantrums are behaviour, the tools the young have to deal with emotions they do not yet understand. They turn on and off easily. They are NOT evidence of some deep-lying trauma. We need to deal with the behaviour first and foremost and to understand it in the round. Positive reinforcement is not always the right route.
Telling somebody that it is wrong in a positive way can occasionally make it too easy for them. Are we really sure a child is listening, rather than hoping we will just finish what we are saying without getting cross so they can get back to their mates/game and carry on?
The truth as I see it is surely – and I say this from experience in both the ultra-competitive world of sport at international level and business – that no one solution fits all individuals. I have captained and coached many teams and individuals, managed teams and departments. Some need support and nurture, some need to be left alone to work things out, some need a (metaphorical!) boot up the backside. The same has to be true in addressing general issues of competition and its relevance in life, to relationships, to the workplace.
Life IS competitive; we have to give our children the tools to deal with it – with the McEnroe’s that they will meet in every walk of life, the bullies, the dishonest – to recognise integrity and be true to themselves.
Not to deal with the feelings that come from losing and winning is to gloss over and shy away – for surely it is from a sense of having “won” or “lost” that much human behaviour stems.
“Non-competitive” sports days for instance are avoidance – reactive rather than proactive means of addressing the issues. As a short term measure they are fine – but the threads must be drawn back together fully at some point. You may feel that “point” is beyond the walls of school – but are we happy the education system presents children with a cohesive whole, if that is the case?
I am quite certain that what I am describing is not the intention of the policy – but it is manifestly the effect. When I regularly see children unable to win without gloating or lose without throwing a wobbly, then I can only conclude something is wrong with the current approach.
Wow! Well written! Did you get a reply?
Two responses!
One was tight pursed lips from the Head when I met her in the playground and I later learned she was a bit scared of approaching me! (Of ME?!?!?!!)
Second was – Thank God somebody has said it at last – she needs to hear that a bit more often – from one of her staff!!
Remains to be seen what will happen at this year’s sports day … will keep you posted!
I have seen this introducing my 6-year old nephew (not really a nephew, son of best friend from school) to older computer games. He’s used to just playing with cosseting modern games, to play a round of Galaxian or Pacman (three lives and you’re out) seems to throw him and once GAME OVER is reached he shrugs and says “I’m rubbish”.
That might be true
but the attitude is weird – a two minute game is over and in his mind that’s it, he’s failed and no point carrying on. Telling him that nothing of value was lost and he can just play it again and again as he enjoyed it while it was going seems an alien concept to him. The idea that practise makes perfect also seems to arrived from another planet.
I’ve also seen something odd with playing very simple wargames with him (usually real rules that I’ve cut down to the bare bones for him to grasp) in that he enjoys the ups and downs equally until the moment he loses when it’s suddenly the end of the world. There seems to be little comprehension that the events of the game are leading towards win or loss, I think in his mind everything exists in a state of equilibrium and the end of the game is just cruel fate that comes from nowhere to torment him.
Most odd. He’s also an extremely intelligent child (partly why we’ve trying challenging him with wargames) so it can’t be a lack of grey matter.
I did get some of that with my Nephew and video games such as Fifa 09 – until I beat him one day and then I made him “take it like a man and a true supporter” – I was helped by the rest of the family backing me up so I think he’s getting it as when he plays for real the accepts the defeats with better grace than he did so. However, none of us in our family really like losing, but you can’t win all the time.