It’s time for another Thursday Thoughts post. The Kid is taking athletics as an elective and that basically equates to the gym class of yore. (Ha, I never thought I’d use yore in a blog post.) An interesting situation came up and I’ve been thinking a lot about it. I keep jumping back and forth over the figurative fence since I can’t decide how I feel about a story The Kid relayed to me.
One of the kids in class (I’ll call him Bob) is not in the most athletic shape. I’m not saying that to be negative as I was just like him at that age. Slightly chubby, completely uncoordinated and always picked last for teams. I empathize with what he might be feeling in gym class. The coaches were having the class run sprints and apparently they were rather intense for 7th graders.
Poor Bob tossed his cookies mid-class. The coach told him to go wash his mouth out and then made him resume the sprints for the remainder of class. Yes, ideally the coaches would have seen that this might be pushing some of the kids too hard but that clearly didn’t happen. I’m torn on my feelings about this.
On one hand, I can see that the coaches might be trying to show Bob and the other kids that pushing your limits is no big deal. You see it on The Biggest Loser. I’ve even felt like barfing at times in the gym, but muster through. It helps me learn that physical exertion isn’t the end of the world. Pick yourself up and get back to it. Become strong like bull. Arrrrr! 😉
On the other hand, this is a young kid that probably isn’t that fond of gym to begin with. Is pushing him like this really going to make a difference in how he feels about fitness? Is it going to show him the benefits of it and make him want to do more? I think it would have horrified me enough at that age that I would have dreaded every class and avoided anything remotely sports-related for years.
If you have kids, has this happened at your school? Do you think they should have let Bob sit the rest of the class out or get back on the horse?
PS – Bob is not his real name or even remotely close to it.
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