Diogenes the Cynic
BANNED Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: St. Paul, MN
Posts: 58,797
I think they should keep score as soon as they're old enough to understand it. That doesn't mean you have to place a lot of importance on it, and you should still stress having fun over winning and losing, but taking the score out it takes away from the fun, it doesn't enhance it. The same with the softball games where kids are allowed infinite strikes and whatnot. Sports are about competing. That's what makes them fun. Taking away the competitive aspects ruins it.
Kids are not going to be devastated by losing, and they still know who's good and who isn't anyway, so it isn't like ignoring the score conceals anything, and giving them 15 strikes just emabrrasses them more, it doesn't make them feel better.
When I was running a couple of sumer day camps in St. Paul, we used to organize little softball and kickball games. Most of the people who worked with me there at the rec centers were women, and they always wanted to not keep score and let the kids swing until they got hits. They even wanted foul balls to be counted as fair. It was ridiculous. I had to put my foot down about. Started running the games by normal rules, kept score and the kids had a lot more fun. When there aren't any rules at all, there isn't any point.
At risk of sounding sexist, it seemed to me like there was a fundamental disconnect between the way men and women understood how boys feel about competitive activities. Not all women, obviously. Dont flame me, but a lot of them didn't seem to get that boys liked trying to beat each other. They need competition and crave it on almost a molecular level. They are also not emotionally ruined by losing a fair contest, and for the most part the kids don't take it off the field with them. There are kids who are bullies, and kids who gloat too much about winning, but the other kids know those kids are assholes.
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Sounds like Red99.
Also, poor dude obviously got banned/griefed for not sugar coating the truth.
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