Only advice I have is get through this without it being a big deal - they messed up, for whatever reason. She had a winning bar routine - and certainly there were things that could improve, but at her age 9.4 is great (at least in our region - 9.1 usually gets into top 3 on L7 bars....). She's at that critical L7-to L8 stage and she's at that critical heading into tweens age group. How she feels about herself and gym and coaches in general is way more important that what happens this weekend. DD spent a year trying to "not let her BHS-BHS series defeat her" so that her 9.4 on beam could maybe be a 9.5.....and even with a kind coach that type of scrutiny was terrible. Her issues started as vestibular, but the coaching mess up still led to a focus on the issue instead of the kid.
L7 bars would be fun to win....but that's about it. Doesn't count an iota in the big picture (she's already proficient at them, so what happens this weekend is "just for fun"). DD has 4 medals from L7 state last year - including AA. She still can't get herself to feel good enough about herself to run her L8 routines (which like your DD she mostly had by that time). As a parent I think you are doing the right thing to down play it now. After state you need to take a serious look into what is going on with the coaching situation. That kind of coaching at this level isn't necessary or helpful, and I'm guessing that if there are 3 coaches at the gym who have the experience to train optionals, that you live in an area with options...(there are 2 coaches in a 100 mile radius of us who have the experience to train optionals well, to give you perspective). Coaches need to, like all of us, admit mistakes (which sounds like HC did) but then CHANGE behaviors!
