Anon Advice Needed

[Anonymous (f4c4)]

My daughter watches these gymnasts on Instagram (Koko.and.Gigi) They are very talented and beautiful gymnasts. But my daughter seems to be obsessed with them, she wants to have all the Little Stars Leotards and Leanne Wong Bows. But I simply can't afford it all. They also have a super nice at home gym, which she wants so bad, which is also a lot of money. Is there anyway to buy equipment cheaper? Ideas for her to make money to buy the leotards, she thought about running a bow business, but idk. One of the big reasons she loves them is because she LOVES Leanne Wong.

 

[Anonymous (a33e)]

As a coach, I am really not a fan of the home gym set ups, so I really wouldn't put your money into that. Way too many opportunities for injuries and bad habits.

How old is she? That might help us with money making ideas, and lead into what appropriate limits and discernment concerning social media might be.

But this is also the problem with social media culture in my opinion. Adults are easily influenced into buying things we don't need - how much more susceptible are our children? If she's a teen, I think it's appropriate to talk about influencers, money, wants, needs, and how social media is not real life. If she's younger, I would honestly recommend severely limiting the amount of time she spends watching this kind of content, or really any social media. USAG has dozens of full meets to watch on its YouTube channel and that would be a great alternative if she likes watching gymnastics. They have the hopes and Nastia meets too if she likes watching younger athletes.

 

[Anonymous (deed)]

Mine is 10 and has never seen any gymnastics social media except for the occasional college routine and pictures of her team after states.

Sometimes I click on something and my feed fills up with #tinygymnasts and very young gymnastics influencers with crazy setups, hitting optionals in 2nd grade, and having hundreds of leos on their walls. I’m an adult and a mom and even though I know better, the videos make me question everything about myself and my daughter. Am I a bad mom? Is she good enough? What are we doing wrong? Why don’t we have a backyard strap bar? Should we have said yes to the TOPS group when it was an option? Are we naive to not homeschool?

And then I blink and come to my senses and back away slowly. Videos and gymnastics influencers are really not healthy for people of any age, but young gymnasts especially need to steer clear.

Phone down. Lemonade stand for charity on the sidewalk (because there are worse things happening in the world than not having a wall of leos and why not take action to change that?). Gymnastics stays in the gym. Stretch and do handstands at home.