School sports day reveals my son’s new attitude to competition

As my son stands on his marks and gets set, I’m struck by the sense that no two kids are the same. In the purest sense, this is evident from the field of competitors either side of him; some classmates half a foot taller than him, others a good bit smaller; some beaming and messing about with trivial joy, others stone-faced and determined in the face of an athletic challenge with which they are fully engaged.

Mostly, however, I’m comparing him to his sister. At three, her neuroses are broad and unpredictable. On any given day, she might be perturbed by me, or by her mum, by having her favourite food, or being denied it, greeting her best friend, or leaving them. She is, in short, a lucky dip from which bad tempers and sullen vibes might be drawn at any time.

My son, by contrast, is of a sunnier disposition. His default setting is chipper enthusiasm and his bad moods don’t tend to linger. He’s like me in that he can’t really be arsed to be upset for much longer than a few minutes, and if we sometimes chafe against his incessant distractability, we can’t deny it’s useful when it comes to his inability to stay negative about anything for very long.

The exception, traditionally, has been matters of competition. The problem is not that he’s particularly eager to win, it’s more that he takes losing quite hard.

His first sports day was case in point; one flat race in which he finished, disconsolate, in last place, and a bean bag sprint in which he left the field in tears. I can still now see the anguish that spread across his face; a heartbroken realisation that he wasn’t as fast as he thought he was.

No amount of common sense can really assuage the pain of knowing your child might be about to have their heart broken, any more than your own cheering encouragement can assuage said heartbreak for them. The standard bromides about it all being part of growing up, something we all go through, don’t even touch the sides. And it was with thoughts of this eventuality that I strolled last week to the leisure centre near our house, ready to cheer and shout and be put through the wringer once more.

There had, of course, been some prep over the preceding few days. This year, all pupils were separated into houses: Griffin, Pegasus, Phoenix, Fenrir and Dragon. I absolutely knew which one my son was in when I received the text reminding me they should come decked out in house colours. I only asked him (while Googling where I could buy block-colour T-shirts, at short notice, nearby) to be absolutely sure. He confirmed it was Griffin – which I knew already, of course – meaning he had to wear orange. Thankfully, he already had an orange shirt, so this required very little special preparation on our part, not least since, again, we definitely knew that this day was separated into teams and that he was in Griffin and that this meant he had to wear orange.

I arrived at the leisure centre shortly before noon, with a tote bag containing sunscreen, a misting spray, some extra water, and his GO GRIFFIN flag. We parents experienced a certain esprit de corps as we sweltered on the sidelines, waiting for things to kick off, and commandeering our little flags as improvised fans. Noticing the evident pit in my stomach, some told me how happy my son looked, and I concurred; there he was, gamely messing around on the touchline, smiling and laughing right until the moment the whistle blew.

As they took off, my first reaction was one of deep amazement at just how fast some of them were, how focused and ready. As they raced ahead, I cast my eyes back to see my son, many lengths behind his nearest competitor. His stiff little gait propelled him forward, his face fixed with resolve. As he passed the finish line, I watched closely to see his reaction and saw that it was… nothing. A smirk and a hug and a quick trot to the touchline to take part in the egg-and-spoon that started before I’d even processed what had just happened.

Again, he moved slowly, balancing his egg as carefully as a newborn baby. Other, slightly more bitter, parents might have impugned the character of certain pupils, whose flagrant cheating should surely have led to their expulsion from the race, and possibly the school itself. I, however, only had eyes for my boy; on his slow, steady progress, and a last place finish conducted without once dropping his egg or, indeed, lifting his heart rate. Again, no wailing or gnashing of teeth – but then came the relay.

He was fifth to receive the baton, with his team some way behind. As it was passed his way, he took off without a care in the world. To my astonishment, he went one further, turning to the crowd and waving the baton with defiant glee, and receiving their roars of encouragement in reply as he gambolled over the finish line, last again.

As I ran to hug him, I wasn’t quite sure what had happened. He received no medal but was beaming from ear to ear.

“They were cheering”, he told me, his eyes wet with pride, “they were cheering for me.”

Photograph by Getty Images