Are Boys vs. Girls fair teams on the playground?
I have been joining Walsh at school for lunch and some playground time, and one of the big things I have noticed about second grade is they love to create uneven (dare I say unfair) teams. (I won’t even get into the cheating with playground games – you can only kick a home run if you kick it directly over second base! Huh, what!)
Invariably when they kids play kickball on their own the five biggest boys in the second grade (who all play baseball and have for years!) assign themselves to the same team. The other team is generally Walsh (who has a May birthday and is much smaller than other guys), two guys who play pretty good and then any girls who happen to be hanging around. There are two girls that play really well and then a bunch that just stand there. The team with the five giant boys wins every time!
When it has just been big boys playing little boys I have said to them “You do realize these are unfair teams.” (Deaf ears on the big guys of course. The little guys are like “Yes, we know it!)
But when there have been girls playing I have bit my tongue not to say “You do realize these are unfair teams.”
I don’t want to make the girls feel bad or less than the guys, but the truth is most of them (not all) have less experience playing ball in general, have spent far less time practicing catching and kicking and are just plain smaller than the boys.
Walsh came home yesterday and told me they played soccer on the playground and that is was boys vs. girls and the boys won 19 to 0. I felt terrible for the girls. I know some girls play soccer often and really well but apparently it wasn’t enough to beat a pack of bigger boys.
So I guess my point is I am torn. I want girls to believe they can do anything as well as boys and can achieve any goal they set their minds to. However, the reality is (at least in playground sports) they are often physically smaller and sometimes less experienced. So do you explain that to the boys and the girls?
Which is more crushing to their egos: To get beaten every day in games on the playground or to tell them, “Listen you’re just smaller and less experienced. That’s all. You need to lobby for more even teams.”
I will say this though in Four Square the girls DOMINATE!! And they run that square life the Mafia. Nobody is moving up unless the girls say so. They can be vicious servers depending on who is in Square No. 2.
Does the Four Square even things out? Or should the kids be encouraged to mix up the teams and keep them more even size-wise? (Maybe the PE teacher could talk about picking teams and keeping things even on the playground.)
In an age of post-women’s lib, are Boys vs Girls unfair teams? Can we say that?
– Theresa Walsh Giarrusso, ajc.com Momania. I have increased my Twitter activity. I am sending out great stories for moms each day focusing on health, fitness, sex, entertainment, food, travel and obviously parenting! So follow me on Twitter at @AJCMOMania!)
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99 comments Add your comment
Thatwhichdoesnotkillyou
May 20th, 2011
10:43 am
What about the benefits for the girls? The way you get better is to play against someone who is better. Think of how easy the game will seem when these girls play against other girls that HAVEN’T had the benefit of playing against the bigger faster boys. They’ll wipe the field with them.
love my kid
May 20th, 2011
10:47 am
First off, Is that a joke? Did the AJC really cancel her column after today?
On topic. I was a short/scrony/boney little girl. But I was always up for a good game of dodgeball or tag or red rover and kickball. I KNEW going in that I would be picked last…but I didn’t care I just wanted to be a part of the game with everyone else. I pretty much just tried not to suck too bad. Believe it or not, some of the girls were pretty good at all those games. I was not..but I enjoyed the fun, the teamwork, the laughter..the exercise. Sometimes play is JUST play….everything doesn’t have to be a life lesson. Even THAT is a lesson. Sometimes you just need to put your sneakers on and run and jump and yell. And even the teachers at school know to leave the kids alone at recess baring something dangerous. Kids DO NOT NEED 24/7 adult intervention…This is their time to learn how to deal with life. Are you gonna follow them at their first job to make sure things are nice for them?
HB
May 20th, 2011
10:57 am
Wrong, Greg. The playground is exactly the place for this. In P.E., a coach should designate relatively even teams or let them pick teams in a fair manner with captains taking turns picking players. In rec leagues at young ages, all kids should get playing time in various positions — that’s how they learn. All-star and travel teams ensure the best kids will get their chance to shine without having to rotate bad players in. If the good players get all the playing time early on, the not so good kids will never get a chance to improve.
Kids need unstructured time too, though, on the playground to enforce rules themselves (or not). If they don’t like the uneven teams, they can walk away letting the big kids know they’re not interested in playing unless the teams are competitively matched. Or the so-so kids can take the opportunity to be leaders on a not good team — a chance they won’t have if they are on a team with the great players. It should be up to them to navigate these options and work things out among themselves.
motherjanegoose
May 20th, 2011
11:06 am
@ Jeff, I agree, Not all topics are a raving success for TWG. This one is an example.
I once asked about taking older kids on vacation with us and asking them to pitch in for evening meals eaten out and souveniers ( sp?) and I was raked over the coals for it. Oh well. All went well last week ( at the beach condo) with our guest who had her own money, emptied the dishwasher at the condo and even walked our dog.
We told her that she is welcome to join us again, as we like her but she has to remain friends at UGA with our daughter :0. Hubby bought them both T-shirts as they were such a pleasure to have along. They cooked and cleaned up too…amazing!
Grandpa
May 20th, 2011
11:10 am
Although I have to agree that the kids should work it out and the helicopter parents should stay out of it, there is another issue here. If your child is one of the bigger boys who enjoy an unfair advantage over the smaller boys and you are saying nothing to your child, I think you are not parenting well in that instance. Yes, life is not fair, but people can be fair. The larger child who wants to beat up on the smaller child just might want to bully in many other ways as well. My experience was that many fights ( I mean physical fights.) were started by larger boys who thought they had an advantage. How far do you let your child go before you talk about it? Does your silence not encourage that behavior?
Ugliest woman in Arizona
May 20th, 2011
11:10 am
Typical TWG blog.
Tiger Ochocinco Mellencamp
May 20th, 2011
11:13 am
Hey TWG…by this same logic, do you opine to Michael that he should really hire less than the strongest applicants for the AP so that their competition with Reuters is more equitable? I mean..that is the “fairest” thing to do, right?
Maybe instead of each of those companies actively seeking out the best and brightest so that they DO have an advantage over their competitors, they should put all applicants in a room and take turns picking so that no one ever has a competitive advantage over anyone else.
As a CPA, maybe we should just have an exemption for those folks who have failed the CPA exam more than 15 times and let them be CPA’s because “they tried real hard”. Screw that. I don’t want that anymore than the public wants it. Life isn’t fair, without that logic, accomplishment means nothing.
Al
May 20th, 2011
11:20 am
If you really “want girls to believe they can do anything as well as boys,” you want them to believe a lie. It’s simply not true. That’s the problem that I have with all the equal opportunity feminist BS. It perpetuates wrong thinking, just as male chauvinism does. Conversely, if you wanted “boys to believe they can do anything as well as girl,” that would equally be a lie. Each sex has it’s own strengths and weaknesses (in this case, more physical strength and athletic ability from males than females), and that’s okay. We are not the same, and it’s silly for us to want to believe and try to advance the lie that we are.
motherjanegoose
May 20th, 2011
11:21 am
@ Grandpa: you bring up a great point. Our son was a bigger kid ( came in at 10 pounds 8 ounces) but we always taught him to respect others. We also taught our kids not to solve problems with their fists.
Once, my daughter witnessed a nasty fight at HS and was very upset. She came home and told me about it. We discussed options and I said this, “if Dad got mad at the neighbors, would he barge over there, knock on the door and say STEP OUTSIDE WE NEED TO HANDLE THIS LIKE MEN…”
Uh…no!
JJ
May 20th, 2011
11:36 am
God one Tiger!!!!
JJ
May 20th, 2011
11:36 am
Sorry I meant Good one, not god one…>LOL
catlady
May 20th, 2011
11:38 am
Theresa, one more comment from me. I push into a 3rd grade class. We don’t play competitive sports in there (it’s reading) but when I let the kids pick sides for skillbook baseball, for example, they usually divide up girls choosing girls, boys choosing boys until the end (since this is an average group, there are fewer boys. They are more likely to be in the “intensive help” group. Just a fact.) So you might be seeing something that is more because of second grade gender issues (or it might not–you are the observer. But be prepared to check preconceived notions and biases and sensitivities at the “door.”)
Tiger Ochocinco Mellencamp
May 20th, 2011
11:44 am
Just a side comment…my kid is the smallest kid on his soccer team. Bar none, kids in the grade behind him are taller than him.
In the beginning of the soccer season when they were scrimmaging, he was always relegated to some defensive position that just kept him in a box while the bigger, more physically mature kids took control of the game. About midway through the season with more practice with the team and at home with me and the older neighbor kids, the oddest thing happened….he elevated his game and started really engaging the bigger kids and using the advantages that he had being smaller (speed, agility, coordination that comes from the lower center of gravity) and MANNED UP. Then another odd thing happened, he got better and better as he took it to the best kids on the team. He’s still not the best, most gifted or skilled kid on the team, but that little spud will hold his own against anyone, and he’ll win some and lose some, but there isn’t a kid on the team that doesn’t respect the growth he’s made or thinks he’s a pushover or not a contributor.
Those are the lessons to teach. When faced with adversity, worker harder than the next guy, it will pay off.
Reality
May 20th, 2011
11:50 am
And where do you think kids get this kind of behavior from? From watching their parents and their leaders of course. Despite the fact that Gallo polls continue to show a majority of americans would like a third party choice, the two major parties have passed laws in every state of the union to make sure that no third party ever has a real chance to compete. We are supposed to have a constitutional republic, not a democracy, where the constitution is supposed to put limits on the government that superceed the ever-changing will of the majority. Good luck with that. Groups of folks gang up, get a majority of votes and then take away freedoms, money, and rights from the minority. And let’s not even bring up our foreign policy where the biggest kid on the block spends every waking moment trying to see who to bomb, invade, occupy, hassle, sanction, etc. next – YES, the USA does exactly that.
Why should kids even want to play fair. They see everyday that the government in their country now serves special interests to INSURE that nobody gets to play fair and that having a friend in government or other friends to conspire with means that you can win every time, regardless of the rights or will of the others.
motherjanegoose
May 20th, 2011
11:51 am
@ Tiger…that’s how our daughter was…she was small but feisty! It was funny to see how their ( son and daughter) different skills impacted the basketball team!
™
May 20th, 2011
12:03 pm
@ JJ….What do you have against God?
shaggy
May 20th, 2011
12:04 pm
Lynn Hill
I wasn’t going to post here today, but saw the “girls are weaker” bent of some of the more threatened male posters here, and couldn’t resist.
I climb. It’s hard, VERY hard. Men have great upper body strength that usually makes them able to make “reach” moves better than women. However, women have better lower body strength, which makes them superior in pushing moves. Then there is Lynn Hill. OK you superior guys, let’s see you jump on El Cap and do the nose…free and in 24 hours, something male climbers take days to do, if they can do it at all.
You go ladies. Have a great weekend, and Theresa…let the kids play.
“Lynn Hill (born 1961) is a United States rock climber, known as a top sport climber of the 1980s and famous for making the first free ascent of the Nose Route on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley.”
usually lurking
May 20th, 2011
12:05 pm
Oh, good grief! Hey Theresa, “leave them kids alone”.
Alecia
May 20th, 2011
12:06 pm
my neighbor’s kid is 2 grades behind mine. Whenever I have a group in the backyard, he is almost always the youngest one by 2 grade levels. He is smaller than all of the other kids. However, he is one heck of an athlete and can out run all of the kids. When I was in school the teacher chose 2 team captains, which took turns choosing their team. There was a coin toss to determined who went first. If they chose bad, oh well. Afterschool a bunch of us played kickball and we worked it out. No parental intervention was necessary. However, the teacher should have gone with the 2 captains model instead of placing 1 gender against the other.
iRun
May 20th, 2011
12:07 pm
Have to agree……Not a great blog…..Actually, most of the blogs lately have been less than adequate.
Reality
May 20th, 2011
12:29 pm
Another aspect of the playyard interaction is that everyone involved has the freedom to participate or not and to withdraw their participation if they are not happy with the teams, the rules, etc. The fact that they continue to play indicates that they value the play more than they are concerned with the inequities in the teams, rules, etc.
Contrast that with american society outside of the playyard.
Here again we see government making the rules of interaction. If I own a business I am not free to not transact with certain individuals. I am not free to offer assistance to the disabled but rather am forced to spend huge amounts of money to accomodate what might be a non-existent customer base or one that could be accomodated at lower cost. As a citizen I am not allowed to keep what I earn, but am force to have a portion of it confiscated to be given to others, or wasted by the government. I am not allowed to consume certain substances that others feel are harmful, even though my actions do not affect them. I am not allowed to do with my body what I wish. I am not allowed to engage in certain financial transactions with others. In short, I am not given the opportunity to decide for myself what I value, but am forced to live according the the values of the “big kids” or the “bullies” of our society who are not content to allow me the freedom to live my life the way I wish, despite a supposed constitutional right.
Reality
May 20th, 2011
12:29 pm
The problems are NOT on the playground but in society.
Photius
May 20th, 2011
12:30 pm
Theresa…. 13 Tweets in the last 45 minutes….?
This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.
Tiger Ochocinco Mellencamp
May 20th, 2011
12:35 pm
@Photius…I find it a little bit ironic that someone who apparently subscribes to TWG’s twitter account and realizes that she tweeted 13 times in 45 minutes would be critical of her tweet frequency.
I’m not on twitter…kind of creepy to me.
Warrior Woman
May 20th, 2011
12:41 pm
@Thatwhichdoesnotkillyou – We’ve seen that over and over again on my daughters’ teams. The ones that learned their sports playing with older girls and boys, rather than those of the same age and gender, have honed their sports and skills so that they are superior to the coddled or unfortunate ones that learned to play in an “everyone wins” environment can’t keep up. The first group are the girls getting athletic scholarships, recognition, and rewards today.
penguinmom
May 20th, 2011
12:44 pm
@Tiger – LOL! so true.
Kate
May 20th, 2011
12:53 pm
Photius is clearly stalking TWG. He has some kind of weird love/hate fascination with her that is beyond creepy.
Denise
May 20th, 2011
1:04 pm
I hate the “everybody wins” environment on organized teams because it’s a lie. It’s not helpful EVER…okay, maybe in Pre-K sports when the best you hope for is that the kids kick toward the right end of the field. But once you start keeping score, keep score! And kids who can count, know who really won and who really lost. They pay attention because they really do care.
At recess, it’s about playing, getting sweaty, bragging, and having fun. Little Timmy might be picked last for dodgeball but he might be picked first for Quiz Bowl. No one is picking the dummy first in an academic challenge just like no one is picking the weakest player first in a physical challenge. Tough stuff.
And TWG, keep your head up. Folks who say the topic sucks still commented. :-)
mom2alex&max
May 20th, 2011
1:04 pm
Geez CREEPY indeed! I don’t tweet, but can you get “unfollow” one of your followers? Kinda like the unfriending thing in Facebook?
Cuz honestly if I were Theresa I’d be a little freaked.
Up 2 Date on Lame
May 20th, 2011
1:08 pm
Hey, lay of Photius. They just want to be that much closer to lame by keeping track of tweets.
HB
May 20th, 2011
1:08 pm
Tiger, twitter is not as creepy as it sounds. You choose users to follow and they become a news feed for you. Personally, I follow multiple news sources and columnists and their tweets and links become a nice news compilation of topics I’m interested in. You don’t have to stalk to know someone is posting excessively. If you follow them, they’ve suddenly dominated your feed. Professional tweeters like journalists should stick fairly close to their own expertise and limit random posts. I just glanced at Theresa’s feed and she’s retweeted a ton of political news in the last hour or so — leave that to the appropriate staff at AJC and don’t clog up the feeds of those who chose to follow AJCMomania for family-related topics. Very poor social networking form. Does AJC not have social networking guidelines for their columnists and bloggers?
Kitchen in a Trailer Home
May 20th, 2011
1:14 pm
Shes probly a liberal.
motherjanegoose
May 20th, 2011
1:15 pm
79 topics so far, not too shabby!
This is NONE of my business but I have always wondered if TWG gets paid per topic or by how many people post on the topic. Stinks if you thought you had something interesting but did not. It may even go by how many hits and not even posts there are.
TWG…I am not asking you to tell us…I am just wondering out loud.
catlady
May 20th, 2011
1:37 pm
But PLEASE tell us! LOL
Tom Haynes
May 20th, 2011
1:52 pm
Yaaaaaawn…… what happened to the good blogs you used to write? i have to agree with others here that things seem to be falling off a bit as of late. Regroup and try again. Looking forward to some interesting material. I know you have it in you!
iRun
May 20th, 2011
2:17 pm
BTW,
iRun
May 20th, 2011
12:07 pm
is a fraud, not the real iRun…but Theresa can tell that by the IP address.
iRan
May 20th, 2011
2:38 pm
And this one?
Tad Jackson
May 20th, 2011
2:51 pm
Hey, Lord of the Flies wasn’t a movie. It was a documentary.
http://www.adixiediary.com
WiRan
May 20th, 2011
2:56 pm
Also, is iRun a trademark?
iRun™
May 20th, 2011
3:07 pm
Trademarked.
Dennis
May 20th, 2011
3:14 pm
@Denise…the main reason I see in US Youth Soccer (and some other organizations) guidelines that keeping score is discouraged in younger age groups is that the goals of player development get lost when there are scores, standings and rewards for first place teams. The adults tend to get out of hand and start making “game decisions” that are in the interests of the team winning and may limit player development over the long run.
If your child is in Baseball or Softball at a young age, or even into later Elementary school, how many times have you heard parents screaming where to throw the ball? Proper coaching leads to the player understanding where to throw or go, but it’s shorter means to the end to always tell the player what to do and might lead to “wins.”
Denise
May 20th, 2011
4:19 pm
@Dennis, that’s fair. It makes sense. I didn’t take into account crazy parents. The adults do tend to take the joy out of sports for kids sometimes…fun/recreation or for competion. It’s uncomfortable to watch. (I’m “just” an aunt so I can pick and choose when I want to go to games/events. The parents do tend to ruin it for me.)
Angela
May 20th, 2011
9:09 pm
http://www.examiner.com/elementary-years-parenting-in-atlanta/discipline-you-and-your-child
DB
May 20th, 2011
9:20 pm
Enter your comments here
DB
May 20th, 2011
9:40 pm
@ Denise/Dennis: Hoo boy, I could tell you some stories about out-of-control soccer parents! I was the team manager for my son’s soccer team for several years, and part of my “game day kit” was a bag of Blow-Pops. When a parent started loudmouthing, I would hand them a Blow-Pop and tell them, “That’s enough — give your mouth something else to do.” It was a standing joke — as soon as I reached into my bag, other parents would start grinning and chuckling. I even gave myself one at one game! It was a funny, non-confrontational way of telling a parent, “Cool your jets.”
We had one day a few years back called “Silent Saturday”, where the parents weren’t allowed to yell or say ANYTHING on the side. Quite a few kids said it was a blissful day, without their parents screaming at them. And of course, if your child plays tennis, you’re probably used to sitting on your hands with your mouth tightly closed – cheering/clapping is highly frowned upon, until the end of the game.
Both my son and my husband are referees — my son has been one since he was 11. I was on the state D&P committee for several years, and was appalled at how absolutely berserk some parents get. Interestingly, the worst parents were the U-11/12 girls dads, and then the U-14 boys parents. I figured that at U-11/12 for the girls, they were starting to sort themselves out athletically, as far as talent — and some girls were just obviously better. However, the parents weren’t ready for the increased physicality in the game and would go nuts if their littl’ darling ended up with an elbow in the ribs. For the U-14 boys, you saw boys who had hit a growth spurt, so there were some distinct differences in size, power, etc. And you had better believe that some coaches, given a choice between two kids of similar ability, will go with the one whose parent is sane.
Nothing can ruin a game for a kid faster than a parent.
mom of 3
May 21st, 2011
10:48 am
And everyone gets a trophy — geez let kids learn they aren’t that good at something and go find something they are good at and they enjoy. Too many parents try to live their unfulfilled dreams and disapointments – Parents need to grow up not their kids. I bet the skinny little geek boy played on the girls team. I bet that hurts him a lot more than any of the girls.
TWG you definately have mother control issues.
Dennis
May 21st, 2011
3:35 pm
@DB….totally agree. I’ve seen a lot even in high school games of parents telling their kids what to do on the field. Some people never lose those habits!
We’ll be back on the field in the fall for another season for two kids (will be U6 and U8) and I’ll coach both teams…and try to reign in the parents so the kids can play their own game and make the mistakes.
raised3
May 21st, 2011
3:37 pm
As my name implies, i’ve raised 3, 1 out of college, 1 in now and 1 on the way. All happy, healthy, active…normal kids, not geniuses, not superstars, normal. In all of those school years, I NEVER found my self at thier school watching a recess or gym class, ever. I cant fathom the level of insecurity that would be required of someone to do that, and I cant fathom the destructive nature of that insecurity on the kids, WOW!!!!
i just threw up in my mouth a little
May 23rd, 2011
8:19 am
life ain’t fair. and losing is a character-building proposition. losing makes you tougher. makes you hungrier. makes victories taste sweeter. don’t coddle your kids. they won’t be able to compete in the future global market – where you can rest assured those children are NOT coddled. They compete for every resource overseas.