Parents Advice to newer gym parents on... medals!

[josie55]

I have some advice to my younger self, so I thought I would share it here in case it's useful to others (it's too late for me, unfortunately.) It relates to gymnastics medals.

People have different preferences and styles around what to do with medals. My daughter hung hers on a rack for a few years, but now they just go in a bin in her closet, which is fine. What I wish I had done, however, was to take a sharpie and on the back of each medal write: the meet, the date, the event and the score. If I were REALLY on the ball, then I would have printed sheets of stickers that I could stick on the medals after each meet and write that info. Yes, some meets print this info on them but many do not. And some meets have cool, custom medals but many others are generic USAG medals with red, white and blue ribbons. So after many years, we have a bunch of medals that all look exactly the same.

I sometimes see people post cool shadowboxes after a competition season with the leotard, medals, photos, etc. and as neat as they are, if your kid sticks with the sport you're looking at 10+ shadowboxes! Our house isn't that big, and our kid doesn't want her entire room dedicated to her sport. But a bin with medals that actually have meets, dates and scores would be really nice to have.

So as we head into our final few seasons I thought I'd pass along this advice to those of you earlier on the journey.

Maybe others have advice on this topic as well, of something that has worked - or not worked - for them?

 

[raenndrops]

I have some advice to my younger self, so I thought I would share it here in case it's useful to others (it's too late for me, unfortunately.) It relates to gymnastics medals.

People have different preferences and styles around what to do with medals. My daughter hung hers on a rack for a few years, but now they just go in a bin in her closet, which is fine. What I wish I had done, however, was to take a sharpie and on the back of each medal write: the meet, the date, the event and the score. If I were REALLY on the ball, then I would have printed sheets of stickers that I could stick on the medals after each meet and write that info. Yes, some meets print this info on them but many do not. And some meets have cool, custom medals but many others are generic USAG medals with red, white and blue ribbons. So after many years, we have a bunch of medals that all look exactly the same.

I sometimes see people post cool shadowboxes after a competition season with the leotard, medals, photos, etc. and as neat as they are, if your kid sticks with the sport you're looking at 10+ shadowboxes! Our house isn't that big, and our kid doesn't want her entire room dedicated to her sport. But a bin with medals that actually have meets, dates and scores would be really nice to have.

So as we head into our final few seasons I thought I'd pass along this advice to those of you earlier on the journey.

Maybe others have advice on this topic as well, of something that has worked - or not worked - for them?

So glad I started doing that with OG from the beginning.
Now, I have a box of ribbons and metals for OG, YG, and some of LSS's too.
We compete the same meets year after year, and their ribbons don't change, so 20 red 2nd place ribbons, 27 white 3rd place ribbons, and 21 yellow 4th place ribbons from home meets can still be separated by gymnast, level, event, score, and date. And I can do that for each team that hosted meets.

 

[Janneke]

I am doing this. Well, I am no longer using a sharpie. My daughter still likes to wear hers from time to time and we found sharpie will rub off after a while. Stickers sound like a good idea, though. Ribbons and certificates go in a scrapbook album. I don't do the decorating thing, just glue the ribbons in and write what they are for.

 

[GymnastMomX2]

Eh, waste of time IMO, in a few years they won’t care lol. My older daughter doesn’t even want her old medals and trophies. They are sitting in a box in the garage. Younger daughter just has a medal hook in her room, I do have all her scores saved in a spreadsheet, but that’s about it.

 

[Coach Kate]

Eh, waste of time IMO, in a few years they won’t care lol. My older daughter doesn’t even want her old medals and trophies. They are sitting in a box in the garage. Younger daughter just has a medal hook in her room, I do have all her scores saved in a spreadsheet, but that’s about it.

Yup. I literally threw all mine away when I moved out. I don't regret it now almost 15 years later.

 

[skschlag]

I kinda wanna donate all of the "identical" medals to the gym to reuse! He pulled out his top medals (nationals gold, another gold from a big meet, etc), but the rest are in a bin under his bed

 

[raenndrops]

I am doing this. Well, I am no longer using a sharpie. My daughter still likes to wear hers from time to time and we found sharpie will rub off after a while. Stickers sound like a good idea, though. Ribbons and certificates go in a scrapbook album. I don't do the decorating thing, just glue the ribbons in and write what they are for.

Sharpie - let it dry - then coat with a clear sealant (or clear nail polish, but don't brush it on - pour a little on and tilt it around to coat it evenly).

 

[NutterButter]

When my daughter moved out she got rid of all medals except a small handful which went into a box with other things from her childhood. I kept one medal for myself because it’s cool (stained glass peppermint candy from the Peppermint Twist meet).

 

[gymgal]

dd's were all stored in a bin, her choice. She displayed a few trophies she received from special meets. When it was all done, she went through the bin, kept those that were special (not generic) and plans to make them into ornaments.

 

[Crash]

Just ordered my daughter a wall mount from Etsy. It has hooks from the medals, her name and a place to write in her PR's. Its painted in chalkboard paint. I use a label maker to print out the meet/event/placement.

 

[twinmomma]

Most of ours have stickers from the meet saying all this info on the back. But honestly unless it was a huge deal meet or a particular goal I probably wouldn't have done this.

 

[Pollylou]

Love the idea of using the sharpie to put year and meet on the back

 

[catchingupmom]

I do keep a binder with the ribbons and certificates which I suspect will be abandoned when college starts. It was nice to refer back to recently when applying for an athletic awards and not all of the meet results were still available online (although I've now started a spreadsheet as well).

What I did was get a bunch of those clear hole punched page protectors, and used plain white bulk cardstock from the office stores. I cut short slits in the cardstock at the top and bottom just a bit under ribbon length and slid them into that two ribbons per page and wrote the meet, date, score and placing if not on the ribbon. Then I put two sheets back to back for the same meet into one page protector so that you can see the results for each meet in one back to back page. I used a durable divider in between years. The medals however I did not do as good a job of keeping track of... The best meets are where they say the meet and placing on the back with a sticker often.

 

[WV Gym Mom]

We don't bother. My daughter couldn't care less about her medals, they are all just put in a box after meets. She has one or two she likes but that is just due to the design (a glow in the dark halloween themed one, for instance). I don't think she'd care to remember scores or dates really. Honestly, I think me recording all that info on each medal would kind of stress her out She's only in her sixth year or competing but we've already tossed out old ones.