Parents Son's attitude (looking for advice/support)

[Flip4funmom]

Please tell me I'm not alone. I can't do my son's attitude anymore. He thinks he's hot stuff and chooses not to listen. I am to the point of pulling him out of gym. He thinks he doesn't have to listen and spends half the night jumping in the pit. I used to LOVE watching him and now it just makes me angry. This all started when we switched gyms and I really thought (hoped) it was just a transitionary thing. I tell him to stop his antics or he won't compete, says he will but doesn't so I tell him he's done and I'll just switch him to a rec class so he "can play in the pit" and he starts balling saying he wants to do gym. We had a conversation on the way to practice tonight about listening, etc he promised he would and of course he didn't. I don't know what to do anymore. The lack of listening is outside the gym too. Is it his age? Something I'm doing? His big brother was never like this.

Help!

 

[duyetanh]

Its his age and who he is. And its ok. I know you wanted him to compete so badly this year, but it might have been so much better for him to wait to mature. I dont doubt he is incredibly talented, but his talent far outweighs his maturity level. And the maturity level is crucial for any sport...doesnt matter how talented you are. The other thing that resonates with me is that you and your husband are on different pages with this....and this does not help your son. It also would be good that what you say to your son you need to back up. He doesnt listen after you told him to, well then put him in a rec class, which will tell the tale. Continued parenting of "you must listen" obviously isnt working. Stick him in that rec class and walk away. He will either decide to focus like he was before, or he will be happy in what i know you feel is a lesser environment. To be very honest, I think you just need to leave it to the coaches, or you really risk pushing your child out of the sport before he ever really gets into it. Go shopping, go workout, go get coffee and sit there and do a crossword or read a book or get on your laptop, knit, go in your car and call a friend,.....do something other than sit there and watch. I promise you it will be healthier for everyone. And when he is done with practice, just ask him if he had fun and leave it at that. Only then will he blossom, because you will be giving him the opportunity to do so by being himself without feeling the weight of your expectations.

 

[sce]

If you can’t watch, then don’t. Let him go to gym and enjoy himself. Leave the gym discipline up to the coaches. If the coaches cone to you with a behavior issue the you talk with your son to asses what the issue is. No threats if taking gym away just listen. Is he bored? Is it too structured for his age? Does he understand the coach’s rules and expectations?

 

[Flip4funmom]

If you can’t watch, then don’t. Let him go to gym and enjoy himself. Leave the gym discipline up to the coaches. If the coaches cone to you with a behavior issue the you talk with your son to asses what the issue is. No threats if taking gym away just listen. Is he bored? Is it too structured for his age? Does he understand the coach’s rules and expectations?

After reflecting on the situation tonight with my husband I do believe he might be bored. He was used to training new/hard skills all the time at his old gym and at his new gym (6 weeks in) he's gone back to a ton of basics that he was missing. I understand it and have seen great improvement but that's not something my son wants to hear or really understands.

 

[Madden3]

or really understands.

Bingo. And there is no reason he should understand at this age. If he cannot behave to the point it is a problem for the coach, I imagine they will talk to you about it. Have they? Do not threaten rec as a punishment. If it is better he be in rec, then that is what is better.

I agree with everyone else. At 5, personally I would not be leaving my child at the gym without me. But that does not mean you have to watch. Bring a really engrossing book.

I do not know much about t and t but in MAG at this age it is all about keeping the kids super busy and having fun. If that is not happening, most kids loose focus and can wander and goof off. That is why at this age practices are best kept relatively short and fast moving.

Have you read books about child development? I personally like the Ames and Ilg series "Your Five Year Old" etc. because they basically just describe in loving detail the range of what is developmentally normal at and around each age. In that sense I find their books very reassuring.

I also have two boys where the elder's behavior was more traditionally "mature" developmentally than the younger. Actually older was unusual and younger more "normal." So I get it can be confusing when that happens.

 

[RTT2]

If by age 5 one of my children's activities was causing me this much stress and unhappiness I would stop doing it and maybe revisit in a year or two.

 

[Taxidriver]

You’ve already been given good advice by others and I agree with leave it up to the coaches unless they have approached you about, just one thing I want to add be careful not to threaten things you aren’t willing to follow through as otherwise they learn that you don’t mean what you say.
Also I personally wouldn’t use moving to rec as a punishment.
Don’t compare him to his brother kids are all very different, mine certainly are.

 

[John]

Also remember your son has many dynamics currently going on. The gym change had to be very confusing and probably still is. You and DH get together make a plan and stick to it. One last thing remember kids who do gym usually have a tough time with boredom and sitting idle.

Wanted to add that this forum helps me think outside the boundaries of my own life. It helps. Me identify where I could be going wrong. None of us are perfect and there are no directions to life.

 

[SurpriseGymMom]

What do the coaches say? Are they concerned, or is it just you?

Time for a little tough love.... your son is 5. You are driving yourself batty with YOUR involvement in his recreational activity of the moment. He is *5*! I know, I know.... he might be the next super duper star.... but far more likely is that he is going to choose something else to do in a little while. Kids do. And that’s ok. Seeing the amount of pressure YOU put on him about this activity, I would say odds are he is going to want to do something else sooner rather than later!
I get that you are fascinated with his awesome talent. It is always fun to see our kids doing something they seem to be good at and it is really hard for some of us to not immediately start planning the college scholarships and professional careers.... but remember, for 99.9% of the kids in this (or any other!) sport, this will end up having been a great childhood activity that taught them lots of valuable life skills.

My advice would be for you to really take a step back and chill. If the coaches aren’t concerned and his behavior is bugging you... don’t watch. Don’t talk about it at home. Let him follow the gyms rules, and let the coaches deal with it. If there is a concern, they will let you know. You harping on it at home is truly not going to help.

 

[skschlag]

Please let him be 5. Please. He is so young, and all this pressure and chaos and ambiguity is going to make him have more attitude. I think stepping back and relaxing as the parent is going to allow him to learn and grow much faster in this sport.

As for being bored, he should not be chucking some of those bigger skills at 5. He should be doing basics and playing. This should not be a job for him. It should be his fun activity. Period. His body, brain, maturity, etc are not ready for those harder skills and it will lead to burnout or injury.

Please please please let him be a 5 yo boy..

 

[Eleven sol]

When my girl was five, she was very physically strong and fearless but immature. She made the top preteam for gymnastics but was always running all over, jumping etc. The more they expected, the more unhappy she was... coach cited maturity. I ended up switching her to soccer so she could run around more... she loved soccer, was very dominant. She made the competitive team at 7 for soccer and guess what... at her coaches evaluation I was told that she is a gifted athlete but needs to focus on listening. I don’t know... sometimes what makes them so good also makes them kind of crazy. I think it is good for them to keep working toward that disciplined approach and I always emphasize respect to coaches but to some extent they are who they are. My daughter’s maturity is improving every year.... I will say that boredom can play a role... my daughter stopped having difficulty in school once she got gifted programming. But... some things in life are just boring, lol, and part of life is to learn to deal with that too. I just keep supporting the coaches and teachers by talking to her about the whys of situations and slowly she makes changes. It just takes time. Fortunately they have a lot of time.

 

[Flippin'A]

Everyone's giving you great advice, and all I'd add is that the best thing you can do for his gymnastics is normalize it. Don't make every practice an event that has to be broken down and hashed out on the car ride home. Don't make him think that you're watching and keeping track of his every move. All that's going to do is make him stressed and unfocused. Put him in the car and ask if he had fun, then change the subject. My suspicion would be that part of his attitude stems from how important you seem to think everything is. Start treating practice like a thing that he does and enjoys, but carries no more weight than anything else in his life, and you may see his attitude improve. I had a coach who was much harder on those tiny superstars at the gym than everyone else, so they all eventually got burnt out because there was so much pressure on them to be perfect. In the coach's mind he was just trying to bring them to their full potential, but he simultaneously made them feel like they were in a different league than the rest of the gym and also like they were dirt under his feet because he never had anything but criticism for them. Being so young on top of that was just too much so they never went as far in the sport as they were capable of going.

And please don't use rec as a threat. If he genuinely loves learning new skills and doesn't have the maturity to work the basics without getting bored just yet then rec may indeed be the best fit for him for another year or so. But because you've framed it as a punishment, now if you do decide to move him back he's going to feel like a failure, and that's a feeling that's hard to shake. You sound like a wonderful, involved, caring parent so I know that isn't what you want for him.

 

[LindyHopper]

I am going to say something that I think you have heard before. He is FIVE! It's time for mama to take a deep breath and reassess what age-appropriate expectations are.

I have always said that we have high, yet age-appropriate expectations of our 5 children. Expect the best, you get the best (but the best you are expecting needs to be something the child is able to consistently do) and even then, the kiddos will slip and make mistakes.

Look into what a Kindergarten teacher expects of his or her students.

An unusually mature child may intelectually understand all of the expectations, but because every other part of him is so young, still be unable to meet the expectations.

He needs to be able to make mistakes, both in behavior and in skills and not be terrified of disappointing you. You need to be (to quote Dr. Phil) his soft place to fall.

You are understandably invested in your child's activities, but are bordering on overly invested. You seem (that's the way it reads anyway) to expect near perfection of him in various areas. That is daunting for anyone, especially a 5 year old. You shouldn't be getting angry, you should be watching him enjoy doing what he loves.

As others have said, these coaches seem to have a better idea of how 5 year olds tick than the other gym did. If coaches are fine with his behavior in the gym, you should be too. Let them take care of discipline on the gym floor--its THEIR job.

Maybe take some time off. Let Dad be entirely in charge of gym for a while. He may do it differently, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. Step away from gym. Perhaps take a class or join a club with something you enjoy that has nothing to do with gym or your son.

And please don't frame rec as a punishment or "less than".

 

[duyetanh]

Hey, thats a great idea! Does it work with the scheduling for Dad to take over?

 

[tpMom]

There is so much that I want to say to this - especially because I see so much of myself in your posts.

To start with, it is extremely unfair and inconsistent to threaten to put him in rec classes because you don't like his focus in the gym. First of all, he obviously knows that his gymnastics is important to you. Threatening to pull him out of classes that you obviously want him in is telling him that you don't think he's good enough. I would guess that some of his reaction to rec classes is because he KNOWS it would mean disappointing you. Please PLEASE give this kid a break.

Secondly, continuing to threaten consequences without following through undermines everything in your relationship with him. If you say "Don't jump in the pit during class or you're going back to rec" and then WATCH him jump in the pit during class without sending him back to rec, you are showing him that your words don't matter and he's going to stop listening to you. Kids crave consistent, fair boundaries. Part of their job is to test those boundaries, and part of our job is to make sure we enforce them the same way every time. We cannot use consequences that we are unwilling to follow through on. Every time you've threatened rec classes for his behavior and not followed through you've undermined those boundaries a little more while at the same time increasing your stress and obviously increasing his stress. Your 5 year old should not be "balling" and begging to go to the gym because of conversations with you, it is unfair to him, unfair to his coaches, and unfair to yourself. You can't be enjoying these interactions any more than he is!

Finally, most children respond much better to positive feedback than to negative. Instead of focusing on the parts of practice you didn't like, try to focus on what you did. So, you could say, "I really liked how you went straight to the mats when your coach asked you to - way to go!" Or, "I saw you listen well to your coaches 3 times today, do you think you could try to listen that well 6 times tomorrow?" Or, "I love that you remembered not to jump in the pit in the beginning of the class - next time let's try to remember not to jump in the pit at all okay?!" Or, better yet, STOP watching this poor kid's practice for a while. Let his coach deal with behavior issues in the gym, you'd be amazed at how healthy it can be to just back off and let your son handle his sport with his coaches. You said yourself in another post that you feel he's mature enough to get himself ready to go to the gym - then why don't you feel like he's mature enough to handle his own practices? If the coach needs your help with his behavior, he or she will ask for it. Mostly likely, his coaches recognize that he's a little boy with lots of energy. More than that, if you're watching every practice and commenting on his behavior for them they probably don't want to pile it on. Give your son a chance to succeed and his coaches a chance to prove that they can teach your child.

I know this is coming off as harsh, but I feel like you continue to ask the same basic questions and you continue to get the same answers from us. Every child is different, we aren't there with you, and you know and love your child. BUT there are lots of parents of lots of talented kids on this forum (which you came to for advice) and in almost every post these parents, coaches, judges, and athletes are advising you to back off and let your child enjoy his gymnastics. I hope that you can hear this advice and know that it's coming from a place of love and concern.

 

[duyetanh]

There is so much that I want to say to this - especially because I see so much of myself in your posts.

To start with, it is extremely unfair and inconsistent to threaten to put him in rec classes because you don't like his focus in the gym. First of all, he obviously knows that his gymnastics is important to you. Threatening to pull him out of classes that you obviously want him in is telling him that you don't think he's good enough. I would guess that some of his reaction to rec classes is because he KNOWS it would mean disappointing you. Please PLEASE give this kid a break.

Secondly, continuing to threaten consequences without following through undermines everything in your relationship with him. If you say "Don't jump in the pit during class or you're going back to rec" and then WATCH him jump in the pit during class without sending him back to rec, you are showing him that your words don't matter and he's going to stop listening to you. Kids crave consistent, fair boundaries. Part of their job is to test those boundaries, and part of our job is to make sure we enforce them the same way every time. We cannot use consequences that we are unwilling to follow through on. Every time you've threatened rec classes for his behavior and not followed through you've undermined those boundaries a little more while at the same time increasing your stress and obviously increasing his stress. Your 5 year old should not be "balling" and begging to go to the gym because of conversations with you, it is unfair to him, unfair to his coaches, and unfair to yourself. You can't be enjoying these interactions any more than he is!

Finally, most children respond much better to positive feedback than to negative. Instead of focusing on the parts of practice you didn't like, try to focus on what you did. So, you could say, "I really liked how you went straight to the mats when your coach asked you to - way to go!" Or, "I saw you listen well to your coaches 3 times today, do you think you could try to listen that well 6 times tomorrow?" Or, "I love that you remembered not to jump in the pit in the beginning of the class - next time let's try to remember not to jump in the pit at all okay?!" Or, better yet, STOP watching this poor kid's practice for a while. Let his coach deal with behavior issues in the gym, you'd be amazed at how healthy it can be to just back off and let your son handle his sport with his coaches. You said yourself in another post that you feel he's mature enough to get himself ready to go to the gym - then why don't you feel like he's mature enough to handle his own practices? If the coach needs your help with his behavior, he or she will ask for it. Mostly likely, his coaches recognize that he's a little boy with lots of energy. More than that, if you're watching every practice and commenting on his behavior for them they probably don't want to pile it on. Give your son a chance to succeed and his coaches a chance to prove that they can teach your child.

I know this is coming off as harsh, but I feel like you continue to ask the same basic questions and you continue to get the same answers from us. Every child is different, we aren't there with you, and you know and love your child. BUT there are lots of parents of lots of talented kids on this forum (which you came to for advice) and in almost every post these parents, coaches, judges, and athletes are advising you to back off and let your child enjoy his gymnastics. I hope that you can hear this advice and know that it's coming from a place of love and concern.

EXACTLY.

 

[bogwoppit]

When I read the title of this thread I thought I was going to be reading about a 13 year old. Wow, a five year old???

There is nothing wrong with his attitude towards gym or life. After raising multiple kids for other people, and 3 of my own, I can say that 5 is such a crazy and magical age. Full of fantasy, make believe, wickedness and wandering.

Please be the parent who helps him manage his life, help him prepare to leave the house, help him remember what to bring, help him to feel relaxed before he arrives.

Let him be 5, because one day you will look back and wish you had been kinder, more laid back and way less on his case when he was. Save the battles for when you really need to fight them. Those years really are yet to come.

 

[gymboymom]

I think it is time for you to take your concerns to a parenting board. I feel it is no longer about gymnastics. It is about listening, direction following, and what you want your parenting style to be. It is no longer about gymnastics.

 

[momnipotent]

This is the response I have been trying to think of all day, every single bit of it. Please read it and re-read it again in the spirit in which it is intended.

There is so much that I want to say to this - especially because I see so much of myself in your posts.

To start with, it is extremely unfair and inconsistent to threaten to put him in rec classes because you don't like his focus in the gym. First of all, he obviously knows that his gymnastics is important to you. Threatening to pull him out of classes that you obviously want him in is telling him that you don't think he's good enough. I would guess that some of his reaction to rec classes is because he KNOWS it would mean disappointing you. Please PLEASE give this kid a break.

Secondly, continuing to threaten consequences without following through undermines everything in your relationship with him. If you say "Don't jump in the pit during class or you're going back to rec" and then WATCH him jump in the pit during class without sending him back to rec, you are showing him that your words don't matter and he's going to stop listening to you. Kids crave consistent, fair boundaries. Part of their job is to test those boundaries, and part of our job is to make sure we enforce them the same way every time. We cannot use consequences that we are unwilling to follow through on. Every time you've threatened rec classes for his behavior and not followed through you've undermined those boundaries a little more while at the same time increasing your stress and obviously increasing his stress. Your 5 year old should not be "balling" and begging to go to the gym because of conversations with you, it is unfair to him, unfair to his coaches, and unfair to yourself. You can't be enjoying these interactions any more than he is!

Finally, most children respond much better to positive feedback than to negative. Instead of focusing on the parts of practice you didn't like, try to focus on what you did. So, you could say, "I really liked how you went straight to the mats when your coach asked you to - way to go!" Or, "I saw you listen well to your coaches 3 times today, do you think you could try to listen that well 6 times tomorrow?" Or, "I love that you remembered not to jump in the pit in the beginning of the class - next time let's try to remember not to jump in the pit at all okay?!" Or, better yet, STOP watching this poor kid's practice for a while. Let his coach deal with behavior issues in the gym, you'd be amazed at how healthy it can be to just back off and let your son handle his sport with his coaches. You said yourself in another post that you feel he's mature enough to get himself ready to go to the gym - then why don't you feel like he's mature enough to handle his own practices? If the coach needs your help with his behavior, he or she will ask for it. Mostly likely, his coaches recognize that he's a little boy with lots of energy. More than that, if you're watching every practice and commenting on his behavior for them they probably don't want to pile it on. Give your son a chance to succeed and his coaches a chance to prove that they can teach your child.

I know this is coming off as harsh, but I feel like you continue to ask the same basic questions and you continue to get the same answers from us. Every child is different, we aren't there with you, and you know and love your child. BUT there are lots of parents of lots of talented kids on this forum (which you came to for advice) and in almost every post these parents, coaches, judges, and athletes are advising you to back off and let your child enjoy his gymnastics. I hope that you can hear this advice and know that it's coming from a place of love and concern.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Short and sweet or not, depending on your perspective.

Stop.The.Madness.

He is 5.freaking yrs old. At this rate you will have run out gyms and he will be done before he is 7