[#1]

What are your thoughts on this article and the issue it discusses?

Does you daughter enjoy PE? Or is she embarrassed to exercise in front of boys and afraid that she will be judged by her fellow classmates?

How do you think PE can be more girl-friendly?

Stef x

[#2]

What are your thoughts on this article and the issue it discusses?

Does you daughter enjoy PE? Or is she embarrassed to exercise in front of boys and afraid that she will be judged by her fellow classmates?

How do you think PE can be more girl-friendly?

Stef x

[#3]

Definately a case of being judeged. I remember what I was like, I was rather late at development and had always been told that I was fat by my mother, so I developed a huge complex even today I feel bad at showing any part of body! x

[#4]

For me it was having to shower with everyone afterwards. Even though it was with just the other girls I have always been extremely private and so it was the shower situation that put me off PE altogether.
If we had had individual shower cubicles I'd have happily joined in with everything. As it was, it made me ill, my asthma got worse with the stress and I was often off school or even played truant it was that terrifying for me.
Owly x

[#5]

I loved PE.  However, I never did leap in the shower after.  Tough on anyone sitting by me later.

I was never slender, but very active and wasn't too bad at the activities.  However, the pretty slim ones always got chosen for teams.

One teacher did discover me training in the swimming pool one day, and really I never looked back after that.

My daughter hated PE.  Her best bit about leaving Year 11 and going to the sixth form was leaving gym behind.  She never felt able to explain why she hated it though.

[#6]

Quite agree Owly regarding the showering issue. 

Again I rather feel that this comes down to this business of the media pretending to know the "perfect body"; and things like breast size, their weight and fear being considerded " fat" by other girls. Also the isues of showing their body parts to other people that they may not know well,  particularly in their first year at secondary school, makes girls body consious.

To a certain degree the same can be said of boys when they see a more advanced boy with full pubic hair and a larger penis than theirs; or vice-versa.  However it does not get as bitchy as it does with girls and does not get commented on so much between boys.

Bear in mind that up until secondary school, the child has not entered puberty and nether are particulary sexually aware, and usually exercise in their underware as the school would prefer that the child be washed by the parent(s).  Also between the ages of 2 years and 9 children tend not to sweat, but get "red" due to the blood vessels moving closer to the surface of the skin to cool them down, as the sweat glands have not fully developed and there is no surface water or Amonia which created dure perspiration.  To that end they would not need to shower as much as an adolecent would, immediately after exercise.

Hope this helps.