Parents Help with confidence

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louBug1980

Proud Parent
My daughter has been competing for a few years and is now at level 6. She competes on a team with her best friend. This friend is super competitive and gets mad if my daughter scores higher than her. This carries over into school. As a result of this, my daughter does not try her best in meets because she doesn't want her friend to be mad at her. What can I do to help her through this and get her to try her best?
 
Doesn't sound like a very healthy relationship.

I guess maybe say something along the lines of by you doing better it makes your friend try harder and do better, you both are better gymnasts when you are trying to be your best.
 
I’m not sure I would want my daughter being best friends with someone like that.

I always tell my daughter not to worry about other people’s scores, to just have fun out there and do the best. Her goal is always to improve on her own scores from prior meets, whether that is improving on her overall AA score for the season or just achieving a personal best on one event, she’s happy. Try to get her to focus on her own goals for herself and not be so bothered about her friend’s behavior.
 
It might help to remind your daughter that 1) she can’t control other’s emotions, and 2) that it is not personal. The truth is, this friend has her own beliefs, values, experiences, and ways of thinking. When your daughter gets better scores, instead of this friend being happy for her, she automatically feels threatened in some way; and that is causing her to react the way she has. It is not personal. It is this friend’s own perceptions and projections. This means your daughter can keep improving, knowing that no matter what this other girl says or does, she does not need to feel rejected, because it is her friend's issues. Help your daughter know that she has worked too hard, and enjoys gymnastics too much, to let another person keep her from the positive experience she deserves to have in this sport.
 
Why aren’t the coaches cottoning onto this? If she isn’t trying her best, it should show. I am finding this very strange, and I would not let my child do gymnastics if she was doing this, because good grief, the sport is expensive enough, let’s move onto another one cheaper and before we start it let’s talk about how to handle this scenario if it ever came up again, which I would hope would be doubtful.
 
That doesn’t sound like a best friend, or a friend at all. I don’t know how old your daughter is but can you talk to the parents of her friend? I would be severely limiting my daughters time with a friend who was this negative.
Your daughter is going to have to learn that a friend who wants you to fail to boost themselves up is not the type of friend she needs or should want.
 
It doesn’t sound like your daughters friendship is healthy. She shouldn’t be friends with someone who gets mad at her for doing her best. Do her coaches know about this?
 
My daughter has been competing for a few years and is now at level 6. She competes on a team with her best friend. This friend is super competitive and gets mad if my daughter scores higher than her. This carries over into school. As a result of this, my daughter does not try her best in meets because she doesn't want her friend to be mad at her. What can I do to help her through this and get her to try her best?

Thanks everyone for your ideas. I admit this isn't the healthiest of relationships and I do talk to my daughter about this quite often. It's hard right now because with gymnastics and school they have the same social group. The coaches know about the issue and are trying to help.
 
It is good you are noticing this issue and trying to find ways to address it. Imo you are right to be concerned.

My daughter is only 7, but I have already seen that she is much more peer oriented than her brothers ever were. It is tough trying to help her find perspective and learn to be true to herself, but it is a battle I am determined to fight with everything I have. I was peer oriented to a fault as a pre-teen and young teen, and trust me I am not being over dramatic when I say this tendency to go against my own best interests in increasingly desperate bids for peer approval nearly killed me.

Imo this is not entirely or even mostly about this other girl. She sounds unusually openly petty, but few kids (or adults) love it when their friends surpass them. This girl may be a particular problem, (what is she doing exactly that is making your daughter afraid to cross her?) but in the end no child can be trusted with this much influence over another kid. This is about your daughter feeling so desperate to please a peer that she is willing to deny herself her justly earned rewards in order to do so. What is more, she is willing to waste your precious time and family funds in her pursuit of approval from this other child.

I see this as a type of peer pressure to which your daughter is succumbing. If this capitulation is happening with this friend, it could happen with other friends or friend groups, a boy friend, etc.

How exactly to address this issue I cannot say. It depends in large part on what your daughter will respond to. Generally, I would suggest find specific ways to help her feel always entirely safe and protected by YOU. Keeping the parent-child bond very strong is a great way to fight peer pressure. Try to help her (re)orient herself to her family more and peers less. Maybe do more fun things as a family so her whole life feels less wrapped up with this social group. If there is time, get her invloved with something like 4H or scouting or a church group or volunteer group or something else this friend does NOT do. If there are nicer girls in the group, maybe try to encourage some one on one time with them. If these kids are socializing anywhere aside school and gym, let it be your home, where you can influence the dynamic.

Also, you do not say how old your dd is but whatever her age, I strongly suggest, keep her away from social media or keep it limited to very light and positive things ONLY with very close monitoring. Much of social media is not a healthy environment for kids or teens generally, but is particularly potentially harmful to kids who are overly concerned with pleasing others.
 

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