AlexandraU16
Proud Parent
- Aug 31, 2021
- 42
- 34
Hi everyone! I have sought your wisdom before and I’m seeking it again because it’s always been so helpful and matter-of-fact.
Here’s the situation:
My girls (4.5, 7.5) started gymnastics last fall. My older was in the beginner rec class (starts at age 5) and my younger was in the preschool class. They moved my younger into an advanced preschool class a few months in and she has thrived there. Before the summer session they let us know they’d be pausing the advanced preschool class and said I could put my younger daughter in the beginner rec class so she wouldn’t have to go back to the regular preschool class. This put her in the same class as her older sister and they had a really good summer together. My older has been working so diligently all year to move up into the next level rec class and she is very close but they don’t do their usual 8 week evaluations over the summer so it may be another couple months before she has the chance.
Over the summer the coach has approached me a few times to tell me how well she thinks my younger is doing but yesterday she asked me to hold back and told me she would like to move my younger daughter up into the next level and that she would like me to consider her for team. Another coach had mentioned team to me in the spring before summer training started and told me it would be six hours a week for the bronze team which I know by gymnastics standards is really fairly reasonable but at the time I really just felt like that’s so much time and too high a level of intensity for a four year old. I felt like she hasn’t even been doing it long enough to be sure she loves it so I had said no thanks back then.
The issue is that while I do not want to hold my younger daughter back and I want her to be supported to excel for as long as she wants to be doing this, I don’t know how to help my older daughter (who works so hard) to deal with her younger sister being in a higher level than her. My husband feels like this is one of those times where she just will have to learn we all have our natural aptitudes for some things and less for other things and just stress the things she is really excelling at but that my younger needs to move up even if it does hurt my older daughter’s feelings. I feel a little more torn.
How would you handle it?
(Also I told the coach we would reconsider team next year. Isn’t 4 so young for that??)
Thanks everyone. Appreciate you reading.
Here’s the situation:
My girls (4.5, 7.5) started gymnastics last fall. My older was in the beginner rec class (starts at age 5) and my younger was in the preschool class. They moved my younger into an advanced preschool class a few months in and she has thrived there. Before the summer session they let us know they’d be pausing the advanced preschool class and said I could put my younger daughter in the beginner rec class so she wouldn’t have to go back to the regular preschool class. This put her in the same class as her older sister and they had a really good summer together. My older has been working so diligently all year to move up into the next level rec class and she is very close but they don’t do their usual 8 week evaluations over the summer so it may be another couple months before she has the chance.
Over the summer the coach has approached me a few times to tell me how well she thinks my younger is doing but yesterday she asked me to hold back and told me she would like to move my younger daughter up into the next level and that she would like me to consider her for team. Another coach had mentioned team to me in the spring before summer training started and told me it would be six hours a week for the bronze team which I know by gymnastics standards is really fairly reasonable but at the time I really just felt like that’s so much time and too high a level of intensity for a four year old. I felt like she hasn’t even been doing it long enough to be sure she loves it so I had said no thanks back then.
The issue is that while I do not want to hold my younger daughter back and I want her to be supported to excel for as long as she wants to be doing this, I don’t know how to help my older daughter (who works so hard) to deal with her younger sister being in a higher level than her. My husband feels like this is one of those times where she just will have to learn we all have our natural aptitudes for some things and less for other things and just stress the things she is really excelling at but that my younger needs to move up even if it does hurt my older daughter’s feelings. I feel a little more torn.
How would you handle it?
(Also I told the coach we would reconsider team next year. Isn’t 4 so young for that??)
Thanks everyone. Appreciate you reading.