Mental issues? Just plain frustrating...

[flipflopcrystal]

We have a girl (Level 6) that has the natural talent that everyone wishes they have, but there are a few problems after that that are preventing her from "being her best self"

1. Got her level 5 skills no problem, but would frequently score mid-8's because of her form and body shapes. Parents would ask why she scored so low and she is just loose on everything! She knows how to be tight, but is never doing it on any of her skills. Now it is effecting her in level 6... How can you remind someone to be tight, without having to repeat yourself a million times?

2. When you give her a correction, she purposely acts like she can't even do gymnastics anymore. Examples: L6 dismount on beam. I said to her "You need to hold your first handstand before you turn into your second" She gets up on the beam and kicks up to bent leg handstand with her head sticking out and falls off to the side. It looks like something a first time gymnast would do. And it's not just ONCE, but she keeps doing it like that. I don't know how to adress that behavior. R/O BHS back tuck. We are trying to make her set go UP instead of back and then she starts doing really poor roundoffs and backhandsprings. It's almost like a silent tempertantrum. It's so strange. Has anyone else seen this?

3. When you give her a correction, she just stares at you, and says nothing. If you ask her if she understands what we are saying, she says nothing. If you ask her to respond to what we are asking, she says nothing. But if you ask her her favorite ice cream, she will respond right away.

She is such a great girl and is a great gymnast, there are just things holding her back from doing her best. She recently said "When we give her a correction, she can't just focus on fixing that one thing because she forgets how to do everything else"

It's just strange and I have seen a lot of behavior issues, but none quite like this. Any thoughts?

 

[momnipotent]

Have you tried a praise, correct, praise approcach with her? I don't coach gymnastics, but I do coach another sport and have had some good luck with similar kids with this approach. Another thing I try to do with kids like that is to make the learning as 'errorless' as possible, so instead of telling her to hold the first handstand up before going into her second, tell her OK, now let's see how long you can hold your first handstand before going into the second. (You could even try adding a challenge-'how long do you think you can hold that first handstand? Do you think 3 seconds or longer?') Just with that slight change in how you phrase it changes it from 'a you are doing it wrong' perception on the part of the child to be more of a challenge and the association they make with it is more positive, so they are less likely to shut down on you.

 

[monkeysmom]

No advice from me, but all I could think of as I read it is that is sounds just like my golf game. If I don't think about it I do OK (if you have fairly low standards). When I try to apply something to learn and improve, it all comes apart.

 

[flipflopcrystal]

so instead of telling her to hold the first handstand up before going into her second, tell her OK, now let's see how long you can hold your first handstand before going into the second. (You could even try adding a challenge-'how long do you think you can hold that first handstand? Do you think 3 seconds or longer?').

By now it seems like we have tried everything, but I will specifically try this method repeatedly tonight and see how she does. She does get praised a lot because she is very good, so it's frustrating that when you try and give her a correction, she just shuts down.

 

[cbone]

How old is the gymnast?

 

[flipflopcrystal]

she is 9, almost 10 i believe

 

[cbone]

I guess what I'm going to say has to be taken with a grain of salt. I have used this technique coaching volleyball and with kids who are one to two years older. I brought my team together after the first game of a match where their effort was awful. I told them, "I'm just your coach. I can't get out and execute for you guys. But I have a question for you. Is the level of effort you just gave acceptable to YOU? Raise your hand if you felt your effort was at a level where YOU are satisfied with it." After no hands were raised, I continued, "YOU have the power to change your effort. Get out there and do it!" I've used that speech twice and every time we have come back and CRUSHED the other team in the following game. Not sure if that approach would work with your gymnast and coaching style, but it's been great for me.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

difficult character=aliya mustafina=your gymnast. hang on for the ride.

 

[pattymello]

Have you tried a praise, correct, praise approcach with her?

At my gym we call this the **** sandwich.

I had a similar problem with a rec gymnast. I also try and be super positive with new recreational gymnasts, as I find many of them have poor self esteem when they start. One of my goals when i coach is to improve their self esteem, which i am usually successful with. But i had one kid that did a cartwheel and I gave him some praise, correction and praise. It seems he was still sensitive to the correction as he immediately shut down, refusing to speak to me or do any work. Your gymnast sounds like she gets so much praise she can't handle criticism.

 

[Canadian_gym_mom]

I am just a mom with a dd that has a stubborn streak and some issues. She has told me (when talking about a particular coach's style) that it really helps her when this other coach actually puts her body into the correct position so she can feel it. When they describe the correction she has a hard time understanding/applying it.

What about when you are correcting the back tuck but the other parts she forgets, could you do the back tuck correction, then remind her before the next turn, remember to do xxx in the roundoff, then xxx in the handspring then xxx in the back tuck. Just go through a quick review of each of the skills?

See, this is why I'm not a coach, but I do have experience with a dd in other areas and know what works for her anyway, lol. Good luck!

 

[kecks]

...i don't know but i have a small weightlifter (girl, age 9) who does something similar. when you give her a correction her snatch or jerk or whatever looks after that when she tries it again like a beginner's try. it's rather frustrating to go through as a coach but her motor learning pattern is just that way. when you give her the time she needs and keep repeating the corrections she usually gets it after some tries (sometimes after weeks!). she just looses the whole movement when she tries to alter just one small thing and needs kind of 'relearn' it every single time. lucky her she's all fast twitch so she can go far in oly lifting when she sticks with it.

 

[ARKGYMMOM]

I don't know if this will help but I have a DD kinda like that in another sport. Her coach has just made it a little harder each time to "impress" him enough to get a high five. I truly belive if they are getting praised constantly it does not mean as much as when they do something really big. So I guess what i am trying to say is if they are getting so much praise for ther things they are doing good at why make the correction to get the praise they are already getting..... Did that make sence at all???

I know it has worked on my Older DD. She is 12 and now she works HARD to get a pat on the back.

 

[jsfofec]

We had gymnast at our gym exactly like that. At first I thought it was the same girl! Our coaches tried everything with this girl. She was put in "time out" at least 3 or 4 times every practice. The coach would send her off the floor to sit in the bleachers until she was ready to come back and listen and be a "good teammate".

She has since left and gone to another gym where the exact same thing is going on there.

Too bad, super talented kid

 

[cbone]

I just had a thought. Have the parents been involved in this process? Maybe they have some insight that could help or the ability to take some type of action outside of gym to help inside of gym. This sounds like it is enough of an issue that these behavior patterns would manifest themselves in other areas of her life.

 

[emorymom]

You might read the book Mindset by Dweck ... and give it to her parents.

There are tons of high ability children and young adults who have been done a huge disservice by the self-esteem praise machine that our schools, homes and gyms have become. My husband is a lawyer at a prestigious firm and the kids getting out of law school (prestigious law schools or they wouldn't even get in the door) he says are often complete disasters. You can't coach (supervise, develop) them. There are seminars about treating them to, as an earlier poster mentioned, the sh&t sandwich method of feedback. THIS IS IN A BUSINESS SETTING.

IMO, just explain to her parents in some fashion that they are paying you to coach her professionally and non-abusively in gymnastics and it's her accomplishments in that arena that are supposed to build her self-esteem. Therefore you expect her to start dealing with corrections. Corrections are your job and dealing with them are hers.

 

[cbone]

Therefore you expect her to start dealing with corrections. Corrections are your job and dealing with them are hers.

I agree, but tough love seems to be decidedly unpopular with gym parents (who I have found to be remarkably thin-skinned). You've emboldened me to say what I've been thinking- this girl seems like she's done in the sport. Not taking corrections, poor performance, disrespecting her coaches and apparent apathy seem like the perfect cocktail for "I'm done!"

OP is in a terrible position.

 

[kimskids]

I agree that a lot of kids today find it hard to take corrections period. They also think everything should come with a reward. My niece when she was around 5 or 6 went to one of my daughters soccer games. After watching for a while she asked "So what do they get at the end"? I didn't quite get what she was asking!! LOL! I told her that my daughter gets to feel good for having a good game and making goals. She totally did not look impressed! LOL! We just switched gyms from one where a lot of parents would get upset if their kids were pushed too hard to one where they are really pushed but not in a mean way. My daughter after the second week is loving the challenge!!

 

[Flossyduck]

I am only a parent, not a coach, but I have to admit that my instinct when I read to post was also to think that it sounds as though this girl has lost interest. Then I had one other thought, which might be a bit wierd, which is to wonder about her diet and whether she is struggling with sugar levels.
When my DD leaves a longish session, the first thing on her mind is food and she is pretty crabby until she gets in the car and is given either her lunch or tea pack-up. After a short time she is all sweetness and light again.
Today at home we were a bit late getting lunch ready and, after doing an all day session yesterday, she's running without reserves - result is a big, very out of character, sulk about not being able to find something she was looking for - unwilling to listen to reason, everything's hopeless bla bla.
It's fairly typical for DD to get despondent and irritable when her sugar levels are low and as they are not allowed to snack during their four hour sessions I have to think really hard about what to feed her before and after a session and at all other times too in order to keep her energy and blood sugar levels under control. I'm finding it quite an operation, but generally a successful one with the odd blip.
Just wondered if there is any correlation with snack breaks, training time of day etc and diet?

 

[momnipotent]

I agree, but tough love seems to be decidedly unpopular with gym parents (who I have found to be remarkably thin-skinned). You've emboldened me to say what I've been thinking- this girl seems like she's done in the sport. Not taking corrections, poor performance, disrespecting her coaches and apparent apathy seem like the perfect cocktail for "I'm done!"

OP is in a terrible position.

I have to disagree with your assessment that she is "done." She might be, but it could also just be a personality/anxiety characteristic. My son can be the same way-if he thinks he did something wrong or disappointed his teacher, coach, or even my husband or me, he will effectively 'shut down,' just like this girl is doing. For him, it is related to some anxiety and perfection issues and we have been working on it since he was in 3 year old preschool. We have had repeated problems with teachers who think he doesn't understand them because he will absolutely refuse to answer with a kind of 'deer in the headlights' look. Now, when he gets like this, he will not answer any question, but this girl might because it is not drawing attention to her performance, who knows? My son is slowly improving, but we have worked with him pretty diligently and have even put him in a private school that works much better with his personality and that has helped, as has the increase in maturity as he has gotten older. I still also stay for his classes at the gym, so if I see this behavior with his coach, the first thing he has to do the following class is apologize, but he really can't help it in the moment and fortunately it doesn't happen often in gymnastics and on the rare occassions it does happen, his coach understands. Unless you havehad a child like tbis, it ishard to understand that they are not being little sh^#s on purpose, but because of how they are.

 

[cbone]

momnipotent (great screen name, BTW), I certainly don't know the child in question, so I'm going off limited information. That said, OP said that the child was acting out "purposely". I'm not trying to be insensitive to those like your son who have legitimate issues with anxiety.