We played some attacking and defending games this week. One of the games consisted of trying to collect as many footballs from your opponents as you could whilst at the same time trying to protect your own teams footballs. Children were asked to choose an approach/tactic that they thought would give them best way to be able to get the opponents balls but also keep as many of their own. Some went all out for attack and some were more cautious in their approach. Having played a few games we then spoke with the children about how they could relate this into our everyday life and spoke about assertiveness and passiveness.
If someone was being mean or unkind to someone else and you stood up for that person, that is a form of being assertive.
If you weren’t quite sure of something the teacher was asking the class to do, rather than put your hand up and ask and feel embarrassed because you are unsure, you would observe others and try to figure it out, this is a form of being passive.
Just like in the game sometimes we play attack to score and win and sometimes we play to defend as not to lose. As in life there is no right or wrong approach, in fact you want to be able to use both in different situations that may arise.
