Parents C*r*a*z*y gym parent

[Deleted member D3987]

actually, i'm a club owner also. and i've been dealing with crazy gym parents, as you have called yourself, for over 40 years. and i have an AARP card. my hair is very grey. and i'm none of the above. i'm irreverant...and in an endearing sort of way. i've also raised 3 grown children in to adulthood. they 'pulled' me and my wife. we never pushed. AND 1 of my kids was a gymnast who earned a full athletic scholarship for gymnastics, who earned a Masters in business and owns a hair salon. go figure. none of them would go in to our business precisely because of all the crazy gym parents that they witnessed us deal with over the years.

i must be a sonofa***** cause i'm a guy. and the 1 thing that can be counted on here when i'm pressed...i will say what no one else wants to say. and then you are speaking in the 2nd person. so then, are you saying that "your child decided gymnastics isn't for her and she doesn't have the skill to play another sport"? calm down and explain that again. if so, your daughter is working on yurchenkos. she's 13. and could do more better if you didn't have her doing 2 other sports. it's not the fault of gymnastics that some of what we do takes an enormous amount of time. and apparently time you won't help guide her to which might mitigate and remedy your complaints. you want your cake and eat it too! not possible in gymnastics.

i am perfectly aware that it was MaryA that asked me to clarify my yikes. doesn't change the fact that your expectations for your daughter are unreasonable given all that YOU posted. so then, keep doing what your doing. and this site is exactly what you say it is for. CB is the best gym site anywhere. and i concede that sometimes i am the exception.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein

 

[Esoteric]

I contemplated long and hard before replying, but I decided to speak my mind. ggmom, you said it yourself. You are a crazy gym mom and an unsupportive mother. I think you are projecting your self guilt and loathing onto not only your child, but onto one of the most real and level headed posters on this forum. I hope you, and your family, are able to get the therapy that you undoubtedly need.

 

[bogwoppit]

Okay folks lets all chill out before I have to hand out the yellow cards.

Dunno you are being wicked, how about you find a different way to say what you want to say.

GGmom you opened the foor with your first post, you are not always going to hear what you want to hear,

 

[bogwoppit]

Oh and just to add, the Chalkbucket is a discussion forum, so you will always get many differing opinions from all views. Please feel free to ignore any post or member who bugs you.

 

[MaryA]

Yikes!!!!!

Well, I don't need to ask you to clarify that one...

 

[ggmom]

Just to clarify - our gym requires 16 hours a week - my daughter is there for 16 hours no less
than any other team member.

While I did expect to get different opinions I didn't realize how rude and obnoxious a person could be.

I see that this board isn't for me and I will be removing myself

 

[Deleted member D3987]

my apologies to ggmom if i offended your sensibilities. my posts, such as some of them are, are a bit irreverent but are endearing to the one i am responding to. my mother is now 85. you should hear the things she says to me to snap be back to reality. it's our family way!

and Bog, you are right. it did sound a bit wicked. i shouldn't respond to what i perceive as an outrageous post. i'll just stick to yikes.

and i try to be consistent. i'm irreverent to other coaches and club owners when you all post up outrageous stuff about some of them also. and when someone dislikes my posts or calls me names i take it like an adult. but i will call it the way i see it so that you all don't get fleeced by an industry that sometimes can be sketchy and at times dysfunctional. my compass is a moral one. not a reverent one.

edit: and now i see that you want to leave. that's unfortunate. this place is fun with lots of banter. and adult banter at that. please reconsider.

 

[littlegirlsdream]

I think if you view gymnastics as only what skills your kid can do or what her scores are then the answer is no its not worth the money, time or commitment for you. I look at it very differently so I will share my view on it. I hope my daughter learns to take risks and chances beyond her comfort level. I hope she learns that when she does this there will be success and failure and that BOTH are perfectly fine. I hope she learns self confidence and pride from her success and how to perservere through challenges and fears. I want her to understand what many many adults don't, that life will throw all kinds of challenges at her but she can face them head on and even if she fails it's ok and life does keep moving forward. I believe she learns all of this in many ways and gymnastics, the sport SHE love, is one way. Few sports require the time and dedication gymnastics does. Few sports require you to stand up in front of people who will judge your every fault and look for your every mistake. it's a tough sport but with the right support I believe the lessons kids learn from it last a life time...yurchenkos and giants don't. So I think your answer depends on what you wanted from gymnastics for your daughter and if she is still getting that from the sport she loves.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

I get that certain skills will make a person nervous and they may have problems performing a skill if they have had a significant fall doing it. But if they are properly prepared for the skill and approach it in a smart manner, then fear shouldn't be a problem. Not saying they won't experience fear, just that it won't be much of a problem.

you obviously didn't know wendy bruce or numerous other high level gymnasts...not to mention some of our own athletes (which i can't due to anonymity) and how neurotic high level athletes can be. constant fear management. and i'll assume you've never been at the elite level. you have no idea what some of them are like. and it's perfectly normal for that level...or any level for that matter. can't go by how YOU might have been as an athlete if you were at one time. they're all different and whether they have fear or not and how they manage it varies from kid to kid. what is consistent about fear in gymnastics are how the behaviours that manifest are all inconsistent. one athlete can have simple thoughts of just breaking an arm, while others are scared they're going to get killed doing something. and i mean that literally. your experience may reveal why you diminish how real fear can be for some kids. it's real in their heads and minds. it's not as simple as what you characterized above. that's all.

 

[gymgal]

Littlegirlsdream: very well written. I need to remember these points next time family members question our sanity with allowing our 11 yr old "waste" all of her time at the gym

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

 

[MaryA]

you obviously didn't know wendy bruce or numerous other high level gymnasts...not to mention some of our own athletes (which i can't due to anonymity) and how neurotic high level athletes can be. constant fear management. and i'll assume you've never been at the elite level. you have no idea what some of them are like. and it's perfectly normal for that level...or any level for that matter. can't go by how YOU might have been as an athlete if you were at one time. they're all different and whether they have fear or not and how they manage it varies from kid to kid. what is consistent about fear in gymnastics are how the behaviours that manifest are all inconsistent. one athlete can have simple thoughts of just breaking an arm, while others are scared they're going to get killed doing something. and i mean that literally. your experience may reveal why you diminish how real fear can be for some kids. it's real in their heads and minds. it's not as simple as what you characterized above. that's all.

Lordy... makes me wonder what I'm thinking... having my child involved in a sport that requires "contstant fear management." Oh well. I guess she'll be prepared for motherhood, if and when that day arrives...

 

[ARKGYMMOM]

GGMOM-I understand what Dunno said makes you really mad and although you say you wil lremove yourself from the board I assume you will be watching from a distance sothat we don't know and that is okay too. I hope you do come back here and learn. What he had to say was pretty blunt however a lot of it made since. I have several best friends and family memberthat can correct me like that and I will get mad as a hornet. You know whatafter I take a step back and think about it I am usually happy that they did sothat I am able to self-evaluate. That is a VERY hard thing to do. I have been a "Crazy" parent ofanother sport and probably would have with gymnastics also if it were not forthe people on this very forum that have explained a million thing to me. I don't post very often but I just wanted tosay that although you are mad just sit back continue to read and learn. Dunno has some of the best advice on thisboard IMO. Yeah he says it blunt but allin all we are all gym families wanting the same things for our children. SUCESS, whether it is in gymnastics or theother life lessons that we obtain from this sport.

 

[Chocoholic]

Research says that a child's executive functioning is more predictive of future success than IQ. EF is all about developing resiliency, the ability to adapt and respond to life's challenges. That's what I love about the sport for my child. As I told her just the other day, I was so proud of her for how she handled her meet on Saturday. Not because it was her best, but because it was her worst. Her team was competing up a level for the first time and she had missed several of the practices because of illness and injury. She was on beam first (typically her best event) and she fell twice. She then went to floor and almost immediately forgot the routine (she had only done the full routine 2 or 3 x before). Rather than give up, she finally found her way and completed a very pretty floor routine, competing her ROBHBT for the first time in competition. Because of all the skills she missed she scored a 3.0! She then went to vault and it became clear in warm-ups that her Severs was too painful and she could not safely compete that event so she had to scratch. Finally, it was the very challenging level 6 bars. She gamely dove in and performed a very solid routine of which she was proud. There were never any tears. She came in last in the all-around (never had happened before) and stood in her spot and presented with a smile at the end. I couldn't have been prouder and I felt better as a parent knowing that she was learning how to handle failures as well as successes.

 

[pattymello]

i certainly hope that you intended that last line to be endearing lest i start in on you also. and read back in other posts to learn things and learn what instigated the why that is my signature line. and i sincerely welcome you to CB.

Definetly meant to be endearing my friend. You bring a fun jovial feel to a thread.

 

[pattymello]

you obviously didn't know wendy bruce or numerous other high level gymnasts...not to mention some of our own athletes (which i can't due to anonymity) and how neurotic high level athletes can be. constant fear management. and i'll assume you've never been at the elite level. you have no idea what some of them are like. and it's perfectly normal for that level...or any level for that matter. can't go by how YOU might have been as an athlete if you were at one time. they're all different and whether they have fear or not and how they manage it varies from kid to kid. what is consistent about fear in gymnastics are how the behaviours that manifest are all inconsistent. one athlete can have simple thoughts of just breaking an arm, while others are scared they're going to get killed doing something. and i mean that literally. your experience may reveal why you diminish how real fear can be for some kids. it's real in their heads and minds. it's not as simple as what you characterized above. that's all.

Your right I haven't had much interaction with the elite level yet and I am sure you have much more experience then myself in the sport so to an extent I bow down to your wisdom. However I do think that approaching it from my point of view is more helpfull than putting fear upon a pedestal. so far this approach has worked for me but I am sure I will eventually find limitations to my approach to skill learning.

Also I made my last reply before seeing your later one. Hence the double post.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

i don't think your limitations will ever be an impediment to the athlete. honestly, the athletes neurosis' are an impediment unto themselves and they can drive you downright crazy when coaching one of these kinds of athletes. coaches that intimidate and scare the kids to death...like the one in the other thread where they're being forced in to doing standing tuck backs on beam....well...that coach is an idiot. and if it was a difficult character gymnast like Mustafina? well...she would take that coach's head and shove it up his own....nostril...to count his nose hairs at her will.

 

[Gymmonkeymomma]

DD says that she wants to continue gymnastics; she also says that she would LOVE to
just go to the practices and never compete -

Didn't read all posts, but this was my older DD, exactly!! She didn't enjoy the meets but wasn't ready to leave the sport. In her 2nd year of Level 8, she was 13, and we actually discussed it (I'm sure there's a post on CB somewhere in the cobwebs about her, lol) and she actually DID quit to "try other things". She was at a point where skills were difficult, she was growing in leaps and bounds and having to re-adjust for the physical changes, not to mention the emotional/mention ones. Fear was a HUGE factor. She left gymnastics for a month, and decided to return and switched to JOGA. She wasn't allowed to compete that year because she had already done USAG meets in that same season, so essentially she got the break from competiting that she wanted/needed. The following year, she did compete JOGA and did quite well, but within her comfort zone of skills. (She has since moved onto high school sports that no longer include gymnastics, but her background has helped her in every aspect of her new activities.)

If your DD loves gymnastics enough to want to stay, can you discuss with the coaches to give her a little bit of a break from competing?

 

[gymmomtotwo]

If I had a 13 year old Level 8, and she's been with her gym her whole career, and has been happy with gymnasticsand still loves it, I would thank my lucky stars and let her coaches handle her. They've gotten her this far, they will work with her to help her continue to progress. Why would you not want her to continue? She's already reached a high level and is improving. She could wander the mall, spend hours texting on a cell phone, spend hours on facebook. I actually understand where you are coming from in a way. I have one child that actually needs a little tough pushing. She took forever to learn how to swim with some overly nice instructors. I've been in frustrating situations where I felt they could have been firmer. But really, a Level 8 13 year old is not a clingy, whiny 5 year old. There is no way she is lazy. The coaches will talk her through it when she is ready. I would think at her age your role would be just to be her ride and her cheerleader. Think of all the other totally unproductive things she could be doing. She clearly doesn't want to quit. It would be disasterous for you to make her. I do agree that as a parent you do have a right not to pay for something that you don't feel is productive. Just because you have children does not obligate you to spend thousands of dollars on competitive gymnastics. Parental responsibility is the basics food, clothes, education, shelter, love, time and attention. Many a child has been raised sucessfully on no organized sports. But when you put that 5 year old on preteam you do have a obligation to see her dream through if it possible (barring other factors). If she loves gymnastics still, and her coaches have no problems with her, she should be allowed to continue. You made the decision way back when she was starting out (whatever that age was) to let her join team. You need to let her see it through (unless it will bankrupt you or ruin her college fund).

 

[shelovestoflip]

bog pointed out the other thread with a similar issue. I go with don't let the scores drive your decision. If your DD is having fun and loves this then that is all that really matters. You said last year she got 32's this year 34's that is improvement. Every Gymnast can't be the one that gets the 37' and 38's. If it were simple to do everyone would be going to the olympics. This is a hard sport and it can take years to get a skill.

Also age 13 comes into play here that is the age where we parents have had our brains removed and know nothing and the 13yo know everything. Have you asked her if she wants to continue competing?

OK, the parents with our brains removed comment just made me laugh out loud!!!!!!

As for the original poster....If your daughter got 32s last season and is getting 34s this season, that seems like a huge improvement to me!

Also, I wonder how many hours she is practicing?

I can't imagine my daughter competing USAG (she is currently level 7 and is 12 1/2) and doing cheerleading and softball! That would definitely be too much for her.

Maybe your daughter needs to step back and consider what she really wants to focus on?

You say she loves her team...but if she loves her cheer squad and her softball team as much or more, maybe that will help her make a decision??

 

[veganmami]

Eeek!! I guess some people can't handle the truth. Dunno can be pretty harsh, but of you take a step back from your situation and see yourself in a different light, it only helps you grow as a parent. JMO.