Dealing with the stress of competition

[mkbalsamo]

I am the mom of a 7 year old level 4 gymnast. She loves gymnastics and takes it very seriously. She works really hard. She will be competing in sanctioned meets for the first time in September. How do you all handle the stress of the scores? Is it hard for your kids when other team members score higher etc? I have felt stressed out just at the fun meets. I am sure she will do well but just nervous about how she might handle scoring lower than the other girls.

 

[gym law mom]

This sport is very easy to get sucked into comparing scores. DON'T GO THERE. It will make you and your dd's experience with gymnastics less than pleasant. Scores vary from meet to meet, judge to judge and about 100 other factors. Look at how well she is doing her routines---you should see improvement as the season goes on and most importantly is she having fun???

The less you talk/stress about scores, the more your gymmie will relax and enjoy her meets. Just be there to give big hugs at the end of the meet and let the scores stay in the gym.

 

[MeetDirector]

Dealing with the pressure can be tough the younger they are.

My dd is a 13yo Level 7 and dealt with this a few years ago. My advice to you is to keep three letters in her head: F - U - N. Without those three letters, she can get very down on herself. Comparing gymnast to gymnast, while it has to be done, can cause an inordinate amount of stress. I would say for her to set individual goals for each meet that don't involve scores; remember that girls doing exactly the same skill exactly the same way can get different scores depending on what the judges see or don't see. Don't fret over trying to figure out what they deducted for or didn't deduct for; it will make you go batty.

Good Luck to her and welcome to the competitive gymnastics journey.

 

[MeetDirector]

GLM -

You and I think an awful lot alike; that is scary.

 

[MdGymMom01]

I agree with the above posters. Getting sucked into the "scores" at this early stage in her gymnastics is just a recipe for disaster. Setting goals for each meet is the way to go. And there will be some meets where things just don't go as "planned" no matter how hard they try. It is just a part of the game. FUN is definitely the way to go! Good luck and have fun! It is a great ride!

 

[mkbalsamo]

Thanks for the great advice, hopefully she won't focus on the scores. I will definitely stress the FUN aspect!

 

[MamaofEnS]

I agree, having fun is the most important thing for your dd. However, our gym is very competitive, and scores are posted and announced, etc., so I understand where you might be coming from.

You will soon see though that sometimes scores don't matter. For example, while your dd's score is higher than another gymnast's, she may place lower in that age category. This happens a lot, and vice versa is also true.

We always went out to eat to celebrate after every meet, no matter how good or bad it went.

I do want to warn you that eating right before a meet can be bad. We have done that mistake twice, and both times my dd had to leave the meet early after getting sick. My dd just can't handle food and a meet.

Good luck and keep us posted.

MamaofEnS

 

[Lingualatina]

I get very stressed out at meets too about the scores, so I tried this new thing I told everyone NOT to tell me what my scores were until the end and it worked! And I scored the highest in my team! SO I think it's best if you tell your DD not to look at her scores (and tell her coaches and teammates not to tell her)! It helps you stay focused on doing your best job ever and not being stuck on one bad score!

 

[bogwoppit]

There is a mom at our club who writes down every gymnasts score at every meet and guess what, her gymmie cries at every meet as she thinks she isn't "good enough", funnily enough her gymmie actually came first overall this year, but as Mom is constantly watching the scores, and asking very loudly how everyone did, her gymmie is so stressed.

Don't watch the scores, watch your child. Enjoy the improvements that she makes and do not let it become a competition between her and her team mates.

 

[Panda-girl's Mom]

I agree not to focus on the scores but be prepared sometimes the scores may mean qualifying to a State competition or not. I experienced this when my daughter was starting out and she was very upset and there was nothing I could do but comfort her. Eventually if she loves the sport she will see past this like my daughter did. She will eventually learn to set her own goals and celebrate her teammates accomplishments. Hopefully your gym will not make a big deal about scores and post them. Our gym does not post scores and I am grateful that they do not.

 

[cher062]

Forget the scores. I think the parents are more stressed sometimes than the kids are. At our gym the gymnasts aren't even allowed to look at the scores they get at a meet. They can't even know what they got until the end. Why because they were getting sad and stressed if they got a lower score than what they expected and then had an awful rest of the meet.

What I do for my DD is I have index cars on a spiral (like a spiral note book) for each meet I record her score. after the meet we look at her score and see if there is any improvement from the prior meet (there always is) Then we make a big deal of her improvement. and definilty out for ice cream (her favorite thing to eat).

At our gym all the parents volunteer for this or that and one of the things I do is record all the scores of all the gymnasts (boys and girls) into an excel spread sheet. Then each gymnast is analized and gets a trend line. They all have upward trends some more steep than others but everyone over the course of the year improves. These go to the coaches and they then can graphicly see what areas need more work for each gymnast. When you have a high score one meet and a lower score the next and so on its sometimes hard to really see the trend. The gymnasts get a copy handed to them by the coaches and my DD loves these.

We focus on individual improvement and FUN!!

 

[gymdog]

On the flip side, even the above would have been way too much focus on scores for me (as a teenager, I would have been absolutely horrified). I'm not saying it's wrong, just...well, maybe I have problems. That happens sometimes.

The point of gymnastics is not really the scores. If they keep improving at their gymnastics they will have more success typically especially out of the large compulsory groups. Or they will just get stronger and more coordinated and have a good experience in life. Whatever. Sometimes I see things like, my child is not improving, only getting mid-34s, etc. Well the truth is a lot of gymnasts aren't going to get 36s in compulsories. What's all on youtube and posted here kind of represents a bias to me because when people perceive their kid to be doing really well they will be more likely to share it (I'm not saying all the time, but what I'm saying is that what I see on the internet and what I see in real life are not the same "average" - make sense?). I never got 36s or 37s when I was a compulsory (although it was less competitive at the time, and I did win from time to time). However, I had tons of success later on, especially in the early optional levels. By the time I got to level 8 I was getting 36s. I have had parents tell me they are thinking maybe they should pull their child out because she's just not scoring well enough. If my parents had pulled me out because of my compulsory scores, well, I guess I wouldn't be coaching or on this website today, don't even know about that.

I don't even know what my compulsory scores reflected, considering by L8 bar scores were between 9.3-9.6, and for some reason the entire year of L6 I screwed that bar routine up beyond belief (beyond belief! I think my highest score was, literally, a 7.9. There's hope for your kids, people. Trust me.) Coaches would watch me and say "hmmm...you should be good at bars...hmmm." Yeah. Don't really know what was going on with bars then. But I moved on. It was okay.

 

[coachinkal]

When our club competes at Regionals and States there are no scores displayed for boys gym at all. The gilrs competition does display scores.

This decision was made by the association to avoid boys adding up the scores or working out who had won medals before the actual medal presentation. It allows them to focus on competing and not on the scores.

If a gymnast knew they had not scored well in the first two apparatus then this may not help them mentally for the rest. Especially if they were the type of gymnast who were very hard on themselves. There would certainly be a few gymnasts I coach who fall into this category.

Coaches get the scores after the competition. We would then discuss in general terms what areas were flagged as needing work. Sometimes however a gymnast might have a bad day at competition, or a fall, or forgot an element in their routine. All of these things need to be taken into account with the scores.