Parents DD wants to quit due to stress

[Gymnastics_mom_3728]

Hi everyone, I’m new to this forum and don’t know how long I would be able to stay since my DD demanded to quit the sport and I’m try to do the right thing as a parent.

Some background here. DD is an over achiever, and she gets emotional when she cannot reach her goal. I recall her calling me to cry about a sub-par report card in grade 4, and having a big meltdown (over days) for falling behind on school projects.

DD is 11 years old and just started training on level 6 this summer. Her team got a new coach whom DD liked before when she occasionally covered her team as a substitute. But last week she cried herself to sleep daily, saying that she is in constant fear of her coach getting displeased when she cannot make the corrections after multiple attempts. She also said she would like to quit the sport altogether, and I quote “I do not need this type of stress in my life”. And she did some research showing her commitment to the sport will not help with future college applications and thus would rather spend more time with school work.

I don’t want her to live a stressful life either, but seeing that she gets stressed about school, drum performance (which she gets scared to under performing and skips), previous gymnastics meets, I worry that we are quitting for the wrong reasons. She also does not want to tell her coach about her struggles (same with school teacher) and I reached out to the head coach anyway, because I believe parents and coaches need to work together in athele’s mental wellbeing. But DD says now they will want to talk to her, which she resents and will cry and hate to let others see that.

I have also found child psychiatrist hoping to manage her anxiety and restore her love for the sport. But I wonder if anyone has similar experience here. Am I beating a dead horse? Should we really just quit and resort to non-competitive physical classes to keep active? Am I a bad parent trying to salvage something that’s bringing stress into DD’s life?

 

[Dsbass]

I think it depends aim where you are in the season. If you’ve already signed a contract/started paying for competitions, I would encourage her to finish out the season and reevaluate. My now 11 year-old went through a hard transition last year with most of her friends quitting and her moving to Platinum with a new coach and needing new skills. She announced she would be quitting after the season and I told her that was fine, but she needed to not talk about it, just move forward with the rest of the year and let me know her decision at the end. She ended up making new friends, being excited about her new skills and loving her new coach. She enthusiastically planned to continue and then our gym shut down. She moved to a new gym but is again saying she will quit after this season, especially because she wanted to do cheerleading at school and couldn’t make it work with her new gym hours. I told her it’s fine but same thing, keep a positive attitude and focus on the present. I can already see her getting happy again and making new friends at her new gym so hopefully she will reevaluate after this year. I think it’s important to learn the lesson that things can be stressful and hard but you can rise above and it can be worth it in the end. That said though, my daughter is strong willed and if she was set on quitting today I’d have a hard time forcing her to stay in. I think it sounds like more anxiety than anything so I’d encourage her to explore ways to manage that anxiety and create realistic expectations so that her perfectionism doesn’t ruin the fun in all aspects of her life.

 

[Madden3]

She is putting an awful lot of pressure on herself about college for an 11 year old. Why is she even thinking about this? I would suggest explore with her what her goals are for her life (assuming she has any even quasi realistic goals at this age) and what her thinking is about college and her later life. Kids get so many crazy messages these days from peers and online, but even parents, school counselors and teachers may say things that they never mean the kid to take so much to heart but they do. Help her understand there are many options for college and where she goes to college or when or how has less to do with future success and happiness than she may be telling herself.

IMO she is way to young to see a therapist or a psychiatrist alone and suggest you are part of her sessions. While of course there are wonderful professionals the psychiatric profession as a whole has taken some major wrong turns particularly as involves treating distressed, anxious and depressed teens. When kids this age need psychiatric help it is very helpful anyway to have family (the child and her parents) sessions because understanding family dynamics can be so helpful.

You could also discuss her goals for gymnastics. It sounds like gymnastics is not fun anymore. Is this something that she thinks may change and does she want it to change? Is there something else she would like to do? Gymnastics takes up a lot of time compared to other sports. Maybe between school and homework and gym it really is too much, and a sport or other healthy activity with less of a time commitment makes more sense.

You might help her make a list of pros and cons about this decision. Sometimes putting pen to paper helps a person take a more calm, rational approach to a hard decision. You can have your own list as well. Both of you will feel better about any decision if it is done in a careful, thought out manner with some rational discussion rather then if it is an overly emotional or fast decision.

Hypnotherapy with a professional hypnotherapist can be very helpful for helping to relieve anxiety and reduce stressful thoughts.

Good luck. I know personally this is a difficult situation for parents.

 

[NutterButter]

First of all, how powerful to be able to say "I don't need this type of stress in my life" as an 11 year old!! Kudos to her for being able to articulate that. She is absolutely correct too. Her extra curriculars should be enjoyable and not bring on a high amount of day to day anxiety. The problem of course is that her anxiety seems be be impacting all areas of her life. Having her start therapy is great. I would also step back and see if there are other areas where stress can be eliminated. (For example, an 11 year old being concerned about college at 11 is just plain sad. And I totally realize that kids can pick up messages that aren't even there but I would look to see what messaging might be coming from the school and/or other adults in her life. If she happens to be at a school where the college talk is prevalent at 11 then I would question if this is really a necessary means to an end - the end being college.)

My DD started in therapy at age 10 for anxiety. She was doing similar things to your DD in school and with her other activities. Therapy helped A LOT. She received tools for managing it and just having an outside person (other than her parents) was a big help. She did her sessions alone but her therapist would involve me as needed to let me know specific things she was doing with her and we had a few joint sessions too so that I could reinforce the skills my DD was learning with her therapist.

Anxiety and the need to please others is very much hardwired into my DD's brain, even now as a young adult. She has many tools to deal with it now but it's always part of her. TBH there were so many times that I wish she had just quit gymnastics but it was never what my DD wanted.

Some things that may be helpful for you... First, therapy! Second, if you believe she truly loves gymnastics and the anxiety is making her not love it, can you work with the coaches to remove some pressure? Could she go one day less each week or train but not compete (ease into competition as she is ready)? Third, work on changing your language around her concerning 'success'. A 4th grader shouldn't be concerned about their report card or college. Nothing a 4th grader does should be considered sub-par. This goes for encouragement/rewarding too. Reward the effort, not the outcome. Her goals should reflect this too.