Kids aged 12 can't run, catch a ball and have poor motor skills.

Dave_The_Sheep

I'm a scout leader in Kildare, deal with kids who are around the age 11-15. Haven't noticed much in the way of kids not being able to run, catch a ball or have poor motor skills.

Maybe it's just the type of kids we get into our Troop in terms of background/social group, but I can't say it's a massive problem I've noticed.

[edit] Obviously this doesn't mean it isn't a problem, just I haven't noticed, which I find odd.

dreamers75

My 12 year has 3 training sessions a week, one of them is in a gym doing cardio

terrible goalie so spot about catching a ball thing.

seamus

Ah yes, trust the independent to massively sensationalise and misrepresent the data.

The headline basically says, "Irish 12 year olds are physically inept couch potatoes".

Which bears no resemblance to the study. The study was 2,000 children aged between 4 and 12. There is a galaxy of difference in all skills between 4 and 12 year olds, so to even present them in the same dataset is flawed to begin with. You may as well be assessing the literacy rates of 2 to 10 year olds and declaring that a shocking amount of Irish children can't read.

The results aren't even actually that bad taken in isolation:
- one-third of children cannot catch a ball with two hands
- one-quarter of girls can throw overhand
- less than half of boys can strike a ball with a bat

If that was all 4-year-olds, that would actually be really good. Let's look at the actual numbers. You have 9 age groups there from 4 to 12. So each age group is presumably 11% of the sample.

33% cannot catch a ball with two hands. So that's all 4,5 & 6 year olds. Sounds about right.

25% of girls can throw overhand. So that's all 11 & 12 year olds. That's not great, but isn't it a pretty common stereotype that women can't do this because it's not something they tend to learn growing up? If we examined the adult female population, what would the score be?

49% of boys can hit a ball with a bat. That's everyone from 8.5 - 12 years of age. Again, seems par for the course. Hitting a ball with a bat is a complex action rather than something simpler like catching or throwing - if a boy spent his whole childhood playing football, he might never learn to hit it with a bat.

On top of that, look at the weasel words. 10% is "up to" one-third. 29% is "barely" one-quarter.

up to one-third of children cannot catch a ball with two hands, barely one-quarter of girls can throw overhand and less than half of boys can strike a ball with a bat.

TL;DR: We can't trust the article because it's deliberately vague and inflammatory. Until I see the actual results I'm going to hold off with the indignation and "parents these days" stuff.

Though I do agree that children should be doing 30 minutes of P.E. every day in lieu of religion. What a waste of time.

Alf Veedersane

The only thesis the article supports is that girls can't throw.

But it has ever been thus.

r93kaey5p2izun

Catching a ball is usually considered a toddler development milestone that occurs age 3-4. I'm sure there's plenty of legitimate questions to ask about this study but I'm surprised that anyone would try to normalise a majority of 4-6 year olds being unable to catch a ball.

valoren

I remember in Primary school we played soccer every day during lunch breaks (weather dependent), we had gymnastics classes, pommel horses, the whole shebang, there was a basketball team that was part of a league, we played in the Sciath na Scoil Football competitions, we did sprinting for the city sports for both individual and relay, we had an annual school sports day in the last week of the year. Now you didn't have to do any of it but the options were there. That was in the mid 80's through the early 90's. We got scrapes, cuts and bruises. All good healthy stuff.

Then came Secondary school and all that stopped. There was nothing. It was the early to mid 90's and something changed. I firmly believe it was the nefarious compensation culture that reached fever pitch (a side effect of the growing influence of US culture and it's litigious society). I remember the story of some arsehole in a city centre public toilet who threw some water, then himself onto the ground 'accidentally' and got thousands in compo. A joke went around Cork city about how Jesus couldn't have been a Cork man. Why? He fell for the third time and never claimed.

Now those scrapes, cuts and bruises could potentially be very costly. For example, no ball playing was allowed during breaks. To release pent up energy, we created a game of keepy-uppy involving mashing the tin foil from our lunches and playing volley with it. It got rowdy in a great way, if you didn't 'keep it up' you got a barrage of friendly digs. It lasted a week before being banned.

The change from Primary to Secondary, and the attitude towards physical exercise was very stark. And that was over 20 years ago.

seamus

Adelaide Massive Smog wrote: »

Catching a ball is usually considered a toddler development milestone that occurs age 3-4. I'm sure there's plenty of legitimate questions to ask about this study but I'm surprised that anyone would try to normalise a majority of 4-6 year olds being unable to catch a ball.

A 3-4 year old can typically catch a large ball hugged to their chest thrown from a short distance.

There isn't enough data in the article about what was tested. For example, I wouldn't expect a 4-6 year old to be able to catch a tennis ball two-handed thrown from 3m.

But I would expect most 9-12 year olds to be able to do it.

So what was tested?

r93kaey5p2izun

seamus wrote: »

A 3-4 year old can typically catch a large ball hugged to their chest thrown from a short distance.

There isn't enough data in the article about what was tested. For example, I wouldn't expect a 4-6 year old to be able to catch a tennis ball two-handed thrown from 3m.

But I would expect most 9-12 year olds to be able to do it.

So what was tested?

Really? I would expect most 5-6 year olds to be able to catch a tennis ball.

Ipso

valoren wrote: »

I remember in Primary school we played soccer every day during lunch breaks (weather dependent), we had gymnastics classes, pommel horses, the whole shebang, there was a basketball team that was part of a league, we played in the Sciath na Scoil Football competitions, we did sprinting for the city sports for both individual and relay, we had an annual school sports day in the last week of the year. Now you didn't have to do any of it but the options were there. That was in the mid 80's through the early 90's. We got scrapes, cuts and bruises. All good healthy stuff.

Then came Secondary school and all that stopped. There was nothing. It was the early to mid 90's and something changed. I firmly believe it was the nefarious compensation culture that reached fever pitch (a side effect of the growing influence of US culture and it's litigious society). I remember the story of some arsehole in a city centre public toilet who threw some water, then himself onto the ground 'accidentally' and got thousands in compo. A joke went around Cork city about how Jesus couldn't have been a Cork man. Why? He fell for the third time and never claimed.

Now those scrapes, cuts and bruises could potentially be very costly. For example, no ball playing was allowed during breaks. To release pent up energy, we created a game of keepy-uppy involving mashing the tin foil from our lunches and playing volley with it. It got rowdy in a great way, if you didn't 'keep it up' you got a barrage of friendly digs. It lasted a week before being banned.

The change from Primary to Secondary, and the attitude towards physical exercise was very stark. And that was over 20 years ago.

Why blame the US? Irish people are more than happy to over do it.

Yakult

Albeit, the study may be vague but its still showing us a glimpse of whats to come.

Pang

The vast introduction of one hour classes across the secondary school sector is also reducing the amount of time available for PE as a lot of schools are now allocating just one single period a week. Absolutely crazy. Students are lucky to get forty minutes of PE as time is needed for changing etc...

scamalert

Shinbin223 wrote: »

http://m.independent.ie/irish-news/health/revealed-irish-kids-aged-12-cannot-run-jump-catch-or-even-hit-a-ball-36043842.html

A study undertaken by the GAA and DCU has found the poor motor skills of 12 year olds, not being able to catch a ball with two hands or use a bat to hit a ball.
As with all of these reports, there may be some exaggeration but the main issues raised are scary enough in my view.

i bet them kids would have no issues doing 10 headshots with xbox controller thou on some deathmatch game.