A Woolly Dilemma

We're told that competition is healthy.
- We're shown that to be PC these days everybody has to have a prize.
We're told that if we do our best we will succeed.
- We're shown that even if we don't do our best we get a reward for trying.

It's a confusing world we're growing up in!

In some ways it's nice.  Our school's junior touch rugby team awards the Player of the Day to someone who tries hard and shows some effort rather than the same skilled players each week (one of whom is my 7 year old daughter who can't understand why she doesn't get Player of the Day consistently in spite of trying her hardest and doing really well).  At this age I agree that it's really important to encourage the less skilled and experienced (one of whom is my son) to continue to enjoy playing.  If they don't get rewarded for their efforts you'll end up with not enough numbers to make the team.  Our solution: more rewards each week.

But here's where my opinion gets sticky.  Whilst I agree with rewarding efforts I don't agree with everyone getting a prize from each layer of pass the parcel!  Yes, I know, complete contradiction but perhaps that's because there's no skill involved in being the person holding the parcel when the music stops. Sure nobody wants kids to go home crying because they didn't win a prize at their best mates birthday party but seriously when do we start teaching kids that growing up means accepting that you don't always win?

And then there is the adult component of child based competition.  The part where we so desperately want our own children to win that we form complete bias against other children.

Z went to Group Day for the Agricultural Society the other day.  After last year I had decided early on that we wouldn't be going, wins or no wins at the school day.  But numbers were down for the school and other mums offered to transport Z and her lamb.  With an already short working week due to a public holiday and study leave I was grateful not to have been going.  But what I really wanted to avoid was a full day of disappointment (both mine and Z's) as our school kids missed out on deserved rewards time and time again.  Last year I put this down to the numbers of lambs in each class making competition very close.  Z's lamb last year was joined at her hip - he still thinks he's a dog and she only has to appear in the paddock for him to bound over to her.  Their performance in "Calling" at Group Day was nothing short of perfect (and I would have said the same had I not known Z from a bar of soap).  Z didn't even place.  In fact of the good dozen of our school kids there, only one ribbon was won.

The evening before Group Day 2013 I was talking to our neighbour, a long-term local of our district and a born and bred farmer.  He told me that it was only ever X school that cleaned up at Group Day.  Apparently, the Ag Society is loaded with families from X school and inevitably it was their children/grandchildren that won all the prizes.  Sure enough, in a conversation after the this year's event with the helpful Mum in charge of Z I was told "Oh X School won all the prizes."  I have no doubt that many were deserved but having been told how Z's lamb had done a perfect transition up the ramp and how our mums there were sure she would get placed I started to think about what I'd been told the evening before.  Further conversation brought up occurrences of judges completely overlooking our school entries - not even pausing to look at them.  Their minds already made up.

Z handled her disappointment well and luckily for the attending mums a highly commended in the "team" turnout meant she did bring home a ribbon.  Z knew before she went though that the competition was fierce so that lesson I was on about earlier is being learned.  She's also learning another lesson - that it's not what you know or how hard you try but WHO you know and how fair they are.

Our school rallied around to get attendance at the Group Day because we were told that if we didn't participate we could eventually lose a long-standing traditional event.  To be completely honest I don't see the point in that long-standing traditional event continuing if it's loaded towards one section of our community.  I don't see the point in attending a Group Day that is so obviously a second Prize day keyed towards X school.  I'd say the "traditional event" is already dead in the water.

L & Z with their beloved lambs at local school Ag Day 2013