Parents Advice for surviving competitive teammates/workout group?

[ORgymmom]

My daughter is at a gym that increasingly attracts girls from other gyms and is getting noticed in our region and beyond. It’s validating, but at the same time, it’s crushing her spirit. She is not on the elite track and girls in her workout group have not been chosen for that, either, but her teammates are still fiercely competitive in both their personalities and in terms of their results. They are bunched together in age and so comparisons are difficult to ignore since there are often many of them in their age group at meets.

It all came to a head a month ago at one of those meets that has a finals-style competition. I don’t know how other gyms select their teams for finals, but hers just goes straight by scores and the top athletes in each event at the regular meet go to finals. For many years, my daughter had elite-track girls in her level, so the same two girls always were chosen for every apparatus at finals meets. There weren’t a lot of hard feelings then because the vast majority of girls were spectating together. Now those girls are doing HOPES so they’re a non-issue.

At the meet last month, my daughter was one of only two girls who didn’t get to compete in event finals. The other girl had multiple falls and a rough day. The other 6 girls all went 1-2 in their events and were given the finals spots. Unfortunately my daughter’s best day overlapped with her teammates’ very best days, she placed 3rd within her team on every event, and did not get to compete in finals.

It’s hard to watch a great little gymnast lose their confidence and obsess over her teammates, close losses, and what feels like a scramble for attention and recognition.

Parents of kids at gyms with lots of internal competition: how on earth are you surviving and helping your athlete?!

 

[Gymgirl84]

The only possible answer is focusing on herself, on what she is improving, learning and feeling when doing the skills/competition and not so much the results.
It sounds like she is doing well, just some teammates are doing a little better. That's something she might me encountering in all stages of life, so the take away is learning to accept that.

 

[Dahlialover]

It would be helpful if you included your daughter’s age. The answer will be different depending on whether she is 8 or 18! Also, when you say “it all came to a head” what does that mean? Are we talking crying in the car, threatening to quit, saying negative things about herself or her teammates, or something else?

 

[ORgymmom]

It would be helpful if you included your daughter’s age. The answer will be different depending on whether she is 8 or 18! Also, when you say “it all came to a head” what does that mean? Are we talking crying in the car, threatening to quit, saying negative things about herself or her teammates, or something else?

Thanks for your reply! Yes, she is doing objectively well but on the days when she’s at her very best and working or competing at her peak, that puts her on par with her teammates’ so-so days.

She’s 10 and you nailed it with crying in the car and saying negative things about her teammates (at home, not to them!). She’s just old enough to be realizing that hard work and talent are not the same and it’s been a painful awakening in such a competitive sport. She used hard work to get into the team program and through compulsories, but she’s hurting to see girls put in less work than her with better, faster results.

When we’ve talked in less emotional moments, she says she does not want to quit or consider a less competitive and ambitious gym. But she also says she feels invisible and wants to be noticed at her gym. I think the kid translation of that is that she doesn’t feel valued by her coaches, and that’s hard for a parent to hear.

 

[JBS]

Parents of kids at gyms with lots of internal competition: how on earth are you surviving and helping your athlete?!

That's just life... no need to help... just talk about it. This happens at all gyms at some point or another.

hard work and talent are not the same

This is what to talk about. She just needs to be happy with herself and understand this concept. One quote that I have found to be very misunderstood over the years is the following...

Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard

It's really only true if both people have a similar amount of talent in the first place.

My oldest was an extreme hard worker... and it took her very far... however... she still could never do what the most talented could do on the first try. She was a L10 for 7 years and now in her 2nd year in the NCAA... still no double layout on floor. The hard work got her to where she is and she is very talented... but she just didn't have enough physical abilities / talent for the elite world... it just got too hard. Harder work was possible... but not really... the body can only be pushed so far before injuries set in.

 

[Dahlialover]

Your daughter is 10 and it sounds like she needs some help gaining perspective. The current situation is temporary; everything is going to change over the next few years. Some of the girls will get burnt out and leave the sport, some will struggle with injuries or fears, some will have a rough time going through puberty, and some girls may have troubles at home or at school. Everyone has their own journey and their own struggles. She needs to learn to focus on her journey and her progress. Additionally, she needs to work on thinking of her teammates as teammates, not competitors. They have some tough years coming up and the girls can choose if they want to support each over or tear each other down. Your daughter can set the tone for the team with her attitude and nothing is more important than that.


I spend a lot of time telling my kid that I do not care how he performs in competitions but I do care about whether he shows up with a positive attitude and uplifts his teammates and competitors. My kid would be in so much trouble if he jealously disparaged his teammates in front of me! Disappointment is natural but petulance and jealousy are unacceptable. I’ve told my kid all along that there are 8 billion people in the world and someone is always going to be more talented than them at everything! You can’t control that. What you can control is your attitude and your effort. Those are the only things that matter. I always point out the low scoring gymnasts who are smiling and cheering for their teammates and finding satisfaction in their own gradual progress. I also point out the kids who show resilience in the face of setbacks. I praise those kids and tell my kid that that those kids are the real winners because they are going to have happy lives. I set the tone for my child by complementing all the gymnasts and cheering genuinely for everyone.

As a parent, you have a lot of influence on your child’s mindset and attitude. I encourage you to stop engaging in topics related to scores and placements and focus on sportsmanship and attitude. Perhaps facilitate some team-building get-togethers. If the gym has a culture of toxic competitiveness, consider moving her to a gym that will teach her better life lessons. That’s the real point of this entire endeavor after all.

Good luck!

 

[ORgymmom]

That’s good advice. I think my daughter has the stamina and focus to see this sport through if she can just let the petty nonsense roll right off of her.

She wants to feel like they’re teammates and not competitors, but the team atmosphere has been soured by the internal competition that the coaches are hyping. Since the elite girls spun off of their group and new girls have joined from other gyms, the coaches have been trying to make the rest of the girls more competitive with each other. There’s lots of testing days, leaderboards, etc. Since the meet with the finals, the other girls have become really talkative about scores and places and who got to compete that day and who didn’t. I feel it from parents, too. It stings to hear someone on your own team calculating out loud the score their kid needs to get meet in order to beat your kid and then gloating when they do.

My daughter is trying to resist getting pulled down into all of that.

I’m not sure if the coaches are deliberately creating this atmosphere or if it’s inadvertent, and I think that’s what I need to watch for.

 

[Dahlialover]

That’s good advice. I think my daughter has the stamina and focus to see this sport through if she can just let the petty nonsense roll right off of her.

She wants to feel like they’re teammates and not competitors, but the team atmosphere has been soured by the internal competition that the coaches are hyping. Since the elite girls spun off of their group and new girls have joined from other gyms, the coaches have been trying to make the rest of the girls more competitive with each other. There’s lots of testing days, leaderboards, etc. Since the meet with the finals, the other girls have become really talkative about scores and places and who got to compete that day and who didn’t. I feel it from parents, too. It stings to hear someone on your own team calculating out loud the score their kid needs to get meet in order to beat your kid and then gloating when they do.

My daughter is trying to resist getting pulled down into all of that.

I’m not sure if the coaches are deliberately creating this atmosphere or if it’s inadvertent, and I think that’s what I need to watch for.

That sounds like a toxic gym culture.