Parents Teammates cheering

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Lilou

Proud Parent
Our current gym really encourages teammates to cheer each other on at meets. Sounds great, except my daughter doesn't like when others are cheering her on. In fact, so much that is makes her self conscious and shy to the point where she doesn't want to even do the event at a meet. I'm not talking about cheering from the stands. I'm talking about your teammates on the floor with you cheering you on from three feet away. This rattles her concentration I think too. She really wants to do the meets though, just without her teammates loud cheering. Not sure if I should say something to the coaches or just try to work with my child to keep her concentration and ignore the cheers. She's only 7.
 
I used to not like it either. I just told my coach if they could stop cheering before my passes (on floor). And I remember saying no cheering on beam because it threw my focus.
The crowd usually picks up on the cues too. When the team mates stop cheering - the crowd stops cheering.

Have her just mention it to the coach and say "I know I cant control the crowds cheers, but it would really help me if my team mates would only cheer before/after my routine"
 
My daughter is the same way, though she isn't a gymnast. She had a team one season (softball) with just really nice kids. I about died laughing one time when she came up to bat and no one uttered a sound. The coach yelled at them to cheer on their teammate, and the runner on first base yelled back "She doesn't want us to cheer for her, it makes her nervous!" I just loved that she felt comfortable enough with them to share this, and that they respected her enough to keep it down. (I will admit it makes me feel like the mean mom, when my kid goes up to bat and I don't cheer for her! And it was really hard to shift gears when my son played baseball for the first time this fall, and I had to remember that I *was* supposed to cheer for him!)

Anyway, my point is that hopefully she is close enough to at least a couple of her teammates to express her wish. Ideally, those are vocal girls who will share the information and help enforce it. My daughter has now learned to mention it, and while not everyone remembers, it helps. And NO ONE has ever teased her about it or made a big deal out of it - even if they don't quite understand, they've all tried to respect her wishes.
 
My kid just got used to it. She is beyond shy. But the girls have done this in practice also, so it has become the norm. She did hate it at first....but now? She acrually thinks it's pretty cool, because it shows the girls care. I am sorry, i realize my post probably isnt helpful. :( Maybe show her some college meets on youtube or elite meets so she can hear everyone cheering?
 
At our gym they practice making noise and being distracting. There are practices when the girls are doing floor they all spread out around the sides of the floor, chatter, yell, clap and generally try to simulate a gym meet. So they get used to it.

Mine doesn't mind her team cheering but she would kill me if I yelled and cheered. I'm only allowed to do that at awards.
 
I coach level 4s and we have a big, loud, generally pretty distracting gym. As we are getting closer to competition we have them sit and watch each more; some love it when there is cheering and some just don't. The ones that don't like it usually come and ask me to have their teammates keep quiet while they are going. I only have to remind once or twice and then the girls always remember that so-and-so doesn't like cheering so they all hush up - it's actually quite cute how respectful they can be...a whisper of "shh, shh" runs down the line. I personally think the sudden silence would be more distracting!

Would she feel comfortable saying something to the coach or could she say something to one or two of her friends, who might spread the word?

If she's at a gym of any reasonable size, it's probably far more distracting and loud at practice than a meet would generally be and she will get more used to it as she gets older. Our level 10s have insane levels of concentration, I can't believe how they can focus with the surrounding chaos sometimes.
 
DD's gym plays a game the girls line up around the floor as someone competes. They cheer and imitate the routine. The twist is when the gymnast doing the routine looks at a surrounding teammate , that teammate has to condition.
 
I would encourage your kiddo to take that up with her coach. A lot of kids just don’t want to share these dislikes with their coach, but really it helps so much when they can really communicate with the coach and that’s the exact sort of think the coach needs to know from her.
 
For my dd it's not about the general loud level of noise, she just doesn't like when a teammate yells loudly as she is going for a skill on beam. Otherwise she is ok with cheering, except of course, if it is me cheering her on BEFORE she goes, which I have learned a long time ago not to do.
 
For my dd it's not about the general loud level of noise, she just doesn't like when a teammate yells loudly as she is going for a skill on beam. Otherwise she is ok with cheering, except of course, if it is me cheering her on BEFORE she goes, which I have learned a long time ago not to do.
Yeah, mine isnt into that either, which is fine by me, as i dont like to yell out stuff either.
 
For my dd it's not about the general loud level of noise, she just doesn't like when a teammate yells loudly as she is going for a skill on beam. Otherwise she is ok with cheering, except of course, if it is me cheering her on BEFORE she goes, which I have learned a long time ago not to do.
Our girls cheer for girls BEFORE and BETWEEN vaults. They cheer BEFORE bars (and a "that's ok" or "finish strong" after a fall on bars). They cheer BEFORE floor and AFTER a "hard" tumbling pass is landed. And for the Optionals, sometimes they will do a "move" with them ... that started when we got a HS and a JR High team... so only been happening for 4 years now.
For beam, the girls are usually too busy on the practice beam to cheer for anyone... but if there are a few who are done and sitting, they only cheer like they do for bars.
 
I talked with her more and she said she is ok if they cheer before and after, but she doesn't like it just before a move or tumbling pass. And no, of course as the parent, I'm not allowed to cheer at all. ;-) Thanks for your perspectives here.
 
I talked with her more and she said she is ok if they cheer before and after, but she doesn't like it just before a move or tumbling pass. And no, of course as the parent, I'm not allowed to cheer at all. ;-) Thanks for your perspectives here.

Help her find her voice with her teammates and her coach now that she can articulate specifics.

And my daughter didn’t want to see my face during her events - I had to either have the phone or my program in front of me. But I’m also not allowed to move- because she needs to know where I am. ‍♀️
 

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