Is this child abuse?

I was riding in the Wenatchee rotary apple century yesterday and I noticed, during the climb before the halfway point, that I was playing "leap-frog" with a man and his young son. I would estimate the young man was under the age of 10, and he and his father seemed on the well fed side. now, the first 25 miles had been relatively flat, but then the route became gradually steeper, climbing from around 600 feet to somewhere over 2400 over 25 miles. Add to that the fact that it was raining rather persistently and several riders were carted away for hypothermia, and this seemed like a very dangerous and unreasonable experience to put a child through. I did notice that the boy's mother was providing personal SAG services in the family van. We passed their van, pulled off to the side of the road several times, and witnessed what seemed like an awful lot of cajoling and earnest,fast talking during these frequent stops. It seemed to me that they would pull off in such a way as to sheild the boy from the view of passing cyclists. I had the distinct impression that the boy was exhausted and wanted to quit. I was exhausted and wanted to quit at that point, and I was trying to imagine how that would have felt at the age of 10. a nightmare! We took off from the halfway point and didn't see them riding after that. The little family did show up for the spagetti feed after we were almost done eathing, so I'm presuming that boy was forced to ride every mile of the 100 and finished some time after we did. I'm still convinced that was something that a child should not have been put through. Am I wrong? Should I have said something?

Well, we don't have a perfect perspective or the benefit of background leading up to the ride...but I wouldn't have taken our 13 year on the metric tour yesterday unless the conditions were perfect - I wanted it to be fun for him, so he'd want more.

Is it abuse? I don't know, is making a kid play football when they don't want to abuse? In my house, yes, but legally, no...

But gee, this is definitely not a way to nurture a love of cycling in the kid, eh?

I don't honestly know. I guess I would have had to see the boy himself and see if he was suffering.

On STP last year, there was a young rider (somewhere around 10-12) who did the 206 miles in one day. He was clearly willing and wanting to do it, though.

Oh, I've been smoked by speedy youngsters during organized rides before (some even of a metric distance), so I know it is possible for a little guy/girl to rise to that sort of challenge quite happily. But none of those rides had that sort of elevation change, distance or weather conditions. My own sons were/are distance runners from the time they entered middle school on. One of them even ran a half marathon in high school--but it was always about them doing something they chose to do themselves. I think (I hope, I hope ) I can tell the difference between choice and coersion. These people were ACTING like what they were doing was wrong. They were actively trying to hide what they were doing. When my son ran his marathon, he did it entirely under his own steam, and if he hadn't been able or willing to finish, we would both have said we were proud of him and left it at that.
I don't know why, but I am haunted by what I saw.

I took my 4 year old son on the tandem for a 39 miler yesterday. Someone teasingly said it was child abuse so I had him ask my son how he felt. "Good" cam the reply. Then he asked if he liked it. "YES!" was the answer. Did he want to quit? "NO!". Then again, no cajoling required except I had to promise a playground at the end rather than the one he saw in the middle of the ride so he'd get back on the bike. He always gets a couple hours at the playground and a treat after. We are always prepared to sag...though he's never asked to so far. He's an amazing kid. I've also seen several elementary school age kids doing similar distances and more on their own bike and have talked to and praised their proud little selves. :)

Was it child abuse? Hmm. That's so hard to say without personally knowing the dynamic. It's easy to judge from the sidelines but sometimes we judge wrong as well as sometimes right. That they cared enough for a personal sag says there's more to the story. Perhaps this kid's really trained hard for this and his parents are encouraging and behind him 100%, giving him pep talks to keep him going along. Seems they aren't forcing him to ride if he had the opportunity to ditch for the dry van at any time.
Or, perhaps not.

Too bad you didn't get the chance to walk up and congratulate the kid, maybe ask how he came to take up such a tough ride and how he liked it. Then maybe you'd get peace of mind....or nightmares.

Either way, it's good of you to care.

I can speak from experience here-
I started running track when I was 7 years old. By age 10, I was competing at the state level in the 1500m run. There were times that I'd go out & run with my dad, and other runners would look conerned because I'd be red-faced and looking like I was about to pass out. If you'd asked me if I was having fun, I would have told you NO, but if you asked if I wanted to quit, I would have also said NO. If I DID want to quit, my dad would always encourage me to keep pushing, and I usually did. He never forced me to do anything, but he didn't want me to give up early, either. A lot of it had to do with my stubborn and infinately competitive personality. Some kids are stubborn like that.

This very well may have not been the case in your situation, but I figured maybe I could put in a different perspective.

You're right, single track mind; I should have congratulated the boy afterwards, but I was seething at those parents who appeared unwilling to let the boy ditch when he clearly wanted to. Another thing to regret. It occurs to me that I was projecting my own situation as a kid onto these people (being forced into various strenuous activities I had no desire to do) and it actually seemed a lot worse than my own situation. I'm in no way saying that people who encourage thier kids to enter athletic events are in the wrong. I was just concerned because the child appeared ready to quit for quite a long time and the parents weren't supportive of that.
Andrea, your perspective comes as something of a relief to me. Thanks.

Whether it is child abuse or not - we shall not be the judges on this forum as we were not with the family (as has been pointed out elsewhere it appears not comme il faut to comment on other people's intents).

However I will break the above mentioned rule by pointing out that following an organized ride (for what purpose??) is not very smart (although I see another thread with just the topic) for environmental and half a dozen other reasons.

Imagine 3000 riders with 3000 sag vehicles. Dumb.

And even dumber to give the kid an incentive to (perhaps? we weren't there, remember) whine about getting a ride.

had to google "comme il faut" to find out what it meant, but yeah, 'tis true--and I'm really just whining about my own hang-ups here anyway.

Hi Laura,

alas the www is a bad medium to get intent across. Of course you are entitled to wondering about it. I would also have thought "stupid parents for making their kid do this". I bet you they saw to it he never wants to ride again. I love the "on the well fed side" and that as well makes you think, doesn't it.

Ellen, Suzie and I did an event ride of 73 miles on Saturday also, south of you, in Oregon outside of Lebanon. The weather was the same as for you. The temperature was in the mid-50s. A few hours into the ride the rain started, a constant cold rain, and so for the last few hours we rode wet and chilled, soaked to the bone. Suzie got so cold her hands turned blue and purple. I can't imagine letting a child ride in those conditions. If I had seen such a situation I probably would have stopped the bike, pulled out the map sheet and called the emergency cell number for the ride organizers to report what I was seeing, and let the event organizers intercede and make a decision.

Darcy

Is difficult to say. I also ran track from 5th grade up through High School. My parents allowed me to make my own decisions but I will say that some kids did not want to run and their parents forced them. Many times the parents were so harsh and if the child had a bad race, the parents would get mad and the child would cry.

I'm like you in that I'm sensitive to that stuff. I think the best thing to do would've been to congratulate the kid because who knows, that could maybe turn a negative thing into a positive. You can never change the parents so even if the child was removed from the ride, the parents would do it somewhere else. If the kid learns that other people are ok to talk to and that just because you're young it doesn't mean you aren't invisible, maybe he'll say something to a school counselor or adult friend about what's going on. If there's something going on, of course :D

Who know what was really going on?? So I won't judge.
But I did feel bad for putting my son in a bad spot a few weeks ago.
When we went to Vegas to ride in Red Rock Canyon I had no idea of the elevation. We are the ultimate sea level weenie family. Once we got going it was immediately clear that we were "in over our head".. But the road was one way, so we couldn't turn back. I tried to make the best of it by walking my bike with him instead of forcing him to try to ride it. And I also apologized a gazzillion times for taking him on such a ride. I didn't want to ruin the fun that road riding is right out of the box.
But yeah, I felt like I was abusing my poor son. Tho he came out of it just fine. And in fact when we rode up a hill here the other day he commented how "easy" it was..Go figure?! :rolleyes:

So who knows what was going on w/that family. I do know that sometimes kids need to be pushed to keep going. Spencer LOVES to play tennis, but he didn't want to take lessons. I think it was a fear of failure or standing out in a crowd or something. But I forced him to start lessons and now he LOVES it. Actually he loved it from the first lesson. It was getting him there. I think most humans like to stay in their comfy little box, but being forced out of the box is good for us sometimes.

It is really hard to say if those parents were making the right or wrong decisions for their child. I guess I will give them the benefit of the doubt cause it is difficult call.

I was a pretty tough kid when I was growing up and if you had asked me to quit I would NOT!

As far as being cold - it probably was not a good idea for the child to be out there, cause children do not have quite as good of temperature control of their body as adults. I'm not really sure when that begins to change.

But, from experience, I used to go horse back riding in Ohio all winter long and if someone told me I could not go because of the weather, I was that much more determined to go! We used to take the coal cinders from the stove and go outside, dump them on the ice in the ring, and then take crowbars and pick at the ice until it was safe for the horses so they would not slide and then we would ride for a couple of hours. This was before all the hi tech clothing that is out these days too! We would get so cold and our hands and feet were just gone. You had to be really careful not to hit the ground very hard, but let yourself down really easy or it was torture!

Anyway, I would never quit! I loved riding way too much and there was no way I was going to stop cause of the weather conditions. Anyway, no harm was ever done and we all survived without frostbite or anything else serious.

So, maybe the parents were just trying to instill some confidence into the boy. It really is pretty hard to tell.

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Originally Posted by Running Mommy

Who know what was really going on?? So I won't judge.
But I did feel bad for putting my son in a bad spot a few weeks ago.
When we went to Vegas to ride in Red Rock Canyon I had no idea of the elevation. We are the ultimate sea level weenie family. Once we got going it was immediately clear that we were "in over our head".. But the road was one way, so we couldn't turn back. I tried to make the best of it by walking my bike with him instead of forcing him to try to ride it. And I also apologized a gazzillion times for taking him on such a ride. I didn't want to ruin the fun that road riding is right out of the box.
But yeah, I felt like I was abusing my poor son. Tho he came out of it just fine. And in fact when we rode up a hill here the other day he commented how "easy" it was..Go figure?! :rolleyes:

So who knows what was going on w/that family. I do know that sometimes kids need to be pushed to keep going. Spencer LOVES to play tennis, but he didn't want to take lessons. I think it was a fear of failure or standing out in a crowd or something. But I forced him to start lessons and now he LOVES it. Actually he loved it from the first lesson. It was getting him there. I think most humans like to stay in their comfy little box, but being forced out of the box is good for us sometimes.

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never fear, your description of what happened with your son sounds WORLDS away from what I saw. In fact, I would say that of all the parents here who recounted their own experiences with children in organized events; this was an EXTREME case.

Darcy hit the nail on the head, I think, having experienced similar weather conditions. I was torn about what to do. I was "raised by wolves", so to speak, so I am often confused about what is "normal". My impulse was that the child shouldn't have had to endure that ordeal, but, being shakey about what is normal, I waivered. I should, in any case have made a point of congratulating the boy in the end.