Need advice from coaches and parents...

[Martin Shupe]

School has started in Texas. My son is in 6th grade. He is in a new middle school, and has been there for about a week.

For the first time, he has different classes with different teachers. He seems to get along fine with all of them.

The first few days he talked enthusiastically about all the different things they were doing in PE that he had never done before. He likes PE, although he has never been in the top of his peer group athletically. He is not overweight (thank goodness he got my wife's genes), but is actually skinny for his age.

Today, however, the activity in PE was running laps, and shuttle races. The last 5 students in each activity had to do extra pushups and situps. I understand the coach is trying to motivate the kids to never be last, and get them to push themselves. However, is it appropriate to punish the "slow" kids all the time? If your kid is always last, what does he learn from being punished? Isn't it enough that he is humiliated by being last?

Now, before you tell me that my kid should "try harder", let me give you one more piece of information. My son has asthma, sometimes severe. It is seasonal, so that usually October and March are his worst months. However, with the drought in Texas, he has had more than his usual problems. Because of his asthma, when it comes to running, my kid will almost always be last. We have taken him to swim team the last few years, where he swims everyday for most of the summer, and he is always last. He simply does not have the lung capacity of other children his age.

So what do we do? Do we tell the coach we don't want him punished for being last? Then he would have to sit out, and my boy does not want this to happen. He does not want to be singled out or given special treatment, but as a parent, I wish the coach would not punish the last 5 boys.

For the coaches out there, is it common practice to make the slow kids do extra pushups just for being slow?

I really don't have a problem with a few extra pushups and situps, but if he is assigned extra laps in the Texas heat, I will be speaking with the Superintendent immediately.

If there are any other parents of children with asthma, I would appreciate how you might handle this.

Anyone else is free to speak up as well.

[John Bailey]

Martin,

As a retired H.S. principal I can tell you the coach is out of line. You should talk to him immediately about your son's condition. There may be a place for this at the high school level on an extra-curricular sport's team. That would be a different story. It would be inappropriate in a regular high school class, let alone a 6th grade class. I suspect you will be satisfied. But if not, go to the pricipal. If you are still unsatisfied, definitely go to the superintendent. That would be the proper chain of command and you are perfectly within your legitimate rights to do so.

I had to call ambulances twice for asthma attacks. It can be a troubling situation.

Good Luck!

John

[Jim Tobias]

Martin,
As a former PE teacher, athletic director and coach (basketball, football, etc. etc.) for 30 years, I do not think punishing the last kids in a run or whatever is appropriate. I do think it is appropriate to ask, expext, require that they do their best. This often requires the coach/teacher to keep students times or scores in numerous categories and just expect/require that each student is improving thier own performace. We called it improving "personal best time". If they do that over a semester or year, they will have improved their stamina, etc regardless where they started.
I do think that highly competitive team sports (as opposed to PE) are a little different in that coaches do have to push the kids harder to improve at a faster pace in order to be competitve. But I still don't think that making the last kids run extra accomplishes very much for those individuals or the team. There are other ways to motivate kids to perform other than punishing the slower runners. Everyone is not going to be the "fastest runner".
Just my opinion But I stick by it.

Jim

[Norman Hitt]

Martin, if it were me, I would immediately talk to his Dr. and explain the situation and ask for his recommendation, and if there is ANYTHING that he feels the coach/PE teacher should know, then have him put it on paper and take it with you when you go in person to talk to the coach. I would make an appt to talk to the coach and tell him what you have related here, since he may not even be aware of your son's Asthma problem. You should tell him that your son doesn't want to be singled out or considered a "Pansy", BUT you ARE concerned about his health and would appreciate anything he could do to increase your son's strength and development, but not in a way that would be detrimental or dangerous to his health. You should then show him the letter from his doctor outlining his recommendations.

"Most" teachers and coaches, when approached in a mild, curteous manner, will be willing to work with with you on matters like this. I wouldn't delay this action, because Asthma can certainly be life threatening in certain situations.
Sometimes children grow out of these conditions, maybe not completely, but at least to a point that it barely affects them if at all. I had asthmatic bronchitis really bad from about the 2nd grade thru the 6 th grade, and it started disappearing rapidly and wasn't really a problem after that, and I played ALL the sports. At age 65 it started showing up again from time to time but not very bad, and mostly only when the allergies are really kicking up.

Maybe your son will be lucky also.

Good Luck with your conference with the coach.

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

Martin, I was the fat kid in school, I always came last, I was not punished for it, aside from being last, that was in PE. I hated it, but I was just fat and could not run a fast, but I did not have Asthma.

When I got into Jr. High School, I went out for the football team, there if I was last, (last 6 players) I had to do an extra lap and get the water and such for the rest of the team at the halfway break in the practise. This made me POed at myself, so I stayed after practice and I ran wind sprints and extra laps, by the end of the first year, I was seldom in the last group!

Again, I did not have Asthma.

In my second year on the team, we got a different coach, he did not punish the last lap guys in a group run, but the last guy in each group. We were split up into groups for our runs, the linemen (me) and the backfield guys, the back field guys were fast, so they competed against each other, and the linemen were not so fast, but we competed against each other, this was a much more fair way of doing it, sometimes I did come last, but most time I did not, and it was rare that the same guy came last in any one group.

This was a lot better way of doing it, as we got older, can you imagine a 200lb lineman trying to keep up to a 150lb wide receiver? Not going to happen, but at the same time, no 150lb receiver was going to squat 200lbs like us linemen did

Just goes to show that there are fair ways to do things.

I'm sure that you and the coach/teacher can work something out, and don't forget to include your son, he gets a vote as well.

Good luck!

[Warren White]

Hi Martin,
I had the same sort of problem with one of my kids who had 'exercise-induced asthma.' He had a similar experience with his coach; he made fun of my son, and made him run laps. We took the Coach a note from the Doctor, saying that he shouldn't run laps but that walking laps was just fine. Despite that, he continued making my son run laps.

We went to the school and talked to the Counselor. She called the Coach in while we were in the room. She asked if what we had said was true. He said that it was. She told him in no uncertain terms that he was to stop immediately and that my son was to suffer no consequences for not running laps; he was not to suffer in his grade, and no special attention was to be given to him for not running. He started to object and was very quickly told that she would make sure that he did what he was told. He asked us to report to her any violation of her instruction.

Basically, it is clear that legally they would be in a real bind if anything happened to any child when a Doctor's orders had not been followed.

Stick to your guns; make sure that the school leadership knows what is happening. They will be on your side. Also, make sure that the Coach knows that he can't take it out on your son in any way.

I hope that it all turns out right; I know that you are a reasonable person and will be able to make your point effectively.

I hope you are well, my friend.

Warren

[Anthony Anderson]

Hi Martin, I was hoping John Bailey would weigh in on this one. Asthma or not, the PE coach is way out of line. I would definately go through the chain of command that John recommended. But one thing I would keep in mind, anytime that you question someone's authority, particularly a teacher, you run the risk of alienating your son with that teacher, and the backlash can be worse. You should, byno means, ignore the problem, especially if when it means keeping your son healthy; just be prepared for some resentment. Even if you have a legitimate claim; it is going to look like you are making excuses, to the coach, to get your son out of extra work. Just don't expect "You know, I never thought that what I was doing was wrong, I thought humiliation would motivate them, but you know what, now I see you are right. Thank you for coming to talk to me. I will change this immediately." It would be great if it did, but don't hold your breath.

Some people don't get the fact, that when you punish someone because of their ineffectiveness at a sport, hobby, or pastime, especially a child, their love for that hobby, sport, or whatever pastime, will be slowly dragged out of the child. Protect your son, preserve his love of PE and sports. Good luck with this, Regards, Bill

[Joe Pelonio]

That coach is out of line and I suspect that the school administration would be very unhappy to hear about this. I agree with talking to him first but I'm guessing that you will have to go over his head. These days I have often been annoyed by the way schools seem to do everything they can to eliminate competition academically, which will only make it harder for the students when they get to college and the real world. Yet when it comes to PE or other forms of sports they go nuts and do something like this.

My son too has asthma, in fact we had to take his nebulizer and a car AC power inverter with us to all sporting events. At PE he had his inhalers but
we got him an exemption from running (doctor's note) because it was 99%
sure to cause an asthma event.

[John Bailey]

As Stu said, let the kid have a vote. There are some (very few, very rare) kids that are just ornery enough to fight back and come out better for it. But, I repeat, this rare. I was one of those kids that was ornery. I ended up being captain of the football team and winning the All-Sports trophy. However, most of my friends would not take the degrading and quit. Those kids never got the benefits of organized sports. And, I lost all interest in sports after the glory of high school sports. To this day, I couldn't tell you who any of the stars are in any sport, unless it becomes national news like the recent Tour-de-France. Knowing what I know now, I would not have played sports, I would have been backpacking, canoeing, kayaking and sailing. But, I guess most of us would make some changes in our lives.

The most important thing is that you support your son, no matter what he decides to do. I was lucky enough to have good parents that supported me in any decision. That counts way more than any coach or school.

John

[Ken Salisbury]

I have extensive coaching experience (football) and being an ex high school football coach I second the recomendation of you talking to the coach one on one. Going over the coaches head is definitely the wrong thing to do.

Is the coach even aware that your son has asthma??

I have had many players who suffered from asthma and allowances can be made and most coaches will do so. If this one won't then he is not qualified to be a coach in the first place. Give him a chance to rectify the situation.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

I'm not a coach and neither is a PE teacher. I would remind the teacher that school is for the mind, and not for body building.

My interpretation of his job is that he should be teaching how and why we should perform healthful exercises and leave it to the parents discretion on what physical activities the child should participate in competitively and to what degree. That's what after schools sports leagues (like PAL) are for.

Parents can choose whether they wish their child to physically compete on after school sports leagues, or participate in a non-competitive after school sports leagues. Either way, these activities should not be the charter of a publicly funded educational system. Only the parents have all the facts about their child to make this determination. Further, the child's physical abilities, or disabilities are not for the PE teacher to highlight or resolve.

My apolgies for sounding abrupt. But this level of emphasis on sports in America seems to be getting worse. Ask the teacher which is more important to society? An educated child with the potential for positive change in our future, or one that sprints well, golfs well, or plays basketball well?

I'm not sure if the teacher's philosophy would work well in any other subject as well. For example, if a child has poor reading abilities relevant to the rest of his/her classmates, should the child be put in front of the classroom and be made to read more? Or are there other more dignifying methods?

-Jeff

Edit...I second Ken's and Jim's recommendation to put it into writing as well as discussing it with the principal and teacher. However, I would recommend the principal be the primary contact, If you discuss this with the PE teacher, the teacher may make an acception for your child which is another form of 'defacto punishment'. It seems a systemic fix is needed, and it's best for the principal to have that responsibllity.

[Ken Salisbury]

I'm not a coach and neither is a PE teacher.

I referred to the PE teacher as a coach because in most school systems the P.E. teachers are usually coaches who have teaching responsibilities in addition to their coaching positions.

Whether the person is a coach or just a teacher does not change my position of giving him/her to opportunity to rectify the situation by a one on one conversation as a first option. Writing letters to the school administration should only be taken as a second option. Any person in who makes a mistake should be given the opportunity to correct it themselves.

Of course I take this position because of me being prejudice in favor of coaches having spent part of my last 40 years doing just that. .

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Ken,
Check out my edit. I re-posted at the same time you posted.
cheers, Jeff

[Ken Salisbury]

Ken,
Check out my edit. I re-posted at the same time you posted.
cheers, Jeff

Jeff, with all due respect to: "However, I would recommend the principal be the primary contact, If you discuss this with the PE teacher, the teacher may make an acception for your child which is another form of 'defacto punishment'. It seems a systemic fix is needed, and it's best for the principal to have that responsibllity" I have to dissagree with you. Lets give the teacher the benefit of the doubt. Believe me - I've been there and made some similiar mistake myself in my coaching career. Going over the teacher's head as a first step could cause more problems than it will solve.

If you made a mistake on your job would you want your boss to report it up the line before he/she discussed it with you? If the teacher/coach does as you suggest then other actions would be appropriate and can be taken.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Chances are, if I made a mistake on my job, everyone will know about it including my boss, boss' boss, and so on. But, I understand your point.

Good luck to the original poster...
-Jeff