Parents Did I ruin my daughters opportunity at a good gym?

[Momofsmallbutmighty]

Is this the same daughter that was repeating bronze? I'm going to assume this is a different daughter, because if a 5-year-old is repeating a level, that would mean she started competing at 4 years old, which I find implausible.

At any rate, at 5 years old I wouldn't even worry about competitive prospects of any particular gym. The first step to becoming a great gymnast is to fall in love with the sport enough to want to stick with it for the long haul, and for a 5 year old that just means she should be somewhere she's having fun. Maybe she'll stick with the sport, maybe she won't. Maybe she'll get really good at it, maybe she won't. But worrying about those long term goals at age 5 does more harm than good.

Same daughter, this is her first year competing, she is 5 and is being told she will repeat bronze next year at 6. I do appreciate your advice. It’s definitely easy to get caught up in wanting the best of the best at every age. I just want to make sure that if she does love it and wants to go far she has the foundation to do it.

 

[Momofsmallbutmighty]

If she was in preteam at age 3, she was probably being prepped for a competitive level that more serious gyms might not even compete.

At my daughter's gym preteam starts at 5-6 years old and they are prepping for level 4. If a 5 year old came with 2 years of experience in preteam it may not matter at all, and may be a disadvantage if they were not primarily focused on flexibility, shaping, lines, straight legs.

The girls on my daughter's preteam are not put there because of skills. They are selected for strength, flexibility, body type, and coordination. A girl with more skills but who lacks these other attributes would be passed up. If they are a gym
that only takes girls that can plausibly make it to 10, they may have decided your daughter isn't their type. They may be incorrect in their assessment, but they may have made their judgement on something you can't control. A more inclusive gym may be the best option for her.

So at my daughter’s first gym they had a program starting at 3. They selected kids that they felt would be good for team one day. This was based on strength, flexibility, etc. not skill. This program was designed to prepare them for team starting super young. They still wouldn’t compete until I believe level 3 but would spend years with the team coaches developing their strength, flexibility, lines, etc. to be ready for that eventual day. My daughter went from that at 3 to pre-team at 4 where she was the youngest on pre-team at her gym. She would have spent an extra year on pre-team because of her age alone and we already knew that. Every gym she tried out at during our move wanted her either on team or pre-team. Even at this gym the coaches said they could tell she was strong and could be a strong gymnast, she just needed more time to develop her skills before moving out of the younger class. Obviously I should have just accepted that and stuck with it, but now I’m concerned she lost her chance because of me.

 

[Momofsmallbutmighty]

If I understand, the first gym put her in a preschool class (ages 3-5) and another gym put her in Bronze. You may not have realized that gyms only move students up to preteam at specific times of year and that the preschool program may have been the most advanced program available at that time, but it wasn’t necessarily going to last very long.

It’s quite possible that your daughter will go to preteam at the better gym, not team, and that’s a good thing. Parents often think that bronze is superior to pre-team but that is not true. I actually think it is developmentally inappropriate for 5-year-olds to compete. The only reason for a 5-year-old to compete is to profit the gym. It’s dumb in every other regard. Your child should be learning fundamentals and not trying to memorize routines, when she is obviously not developmentally ready for that task. See what the other gym has to offer and take it or leave it. If your daughter is really good at gymnastics, it doesn’t matter what program she does at age 5 and if she is average at gymnastics it REALLY doesn’t matter what program she does at age 5.

Yes first gym put her in a pre-school class and yes she would have been moved up to pre-team hopefully quickly and 10000% yes I should have just realized that’s ok. I panicked because I was naive and the program we were coming from was more intense and she was used to being on pre-team at her last gym. It wasn’t a good decision. She was put on bronze at her current gym because that’s where she was placed when she tried out. I hadn’t been planning on her competing for at least another year. I just hope that the first gym would be willing to forgive me for my mistakes and be willing to give my daughter a second chance even if that’s a pre preteam type class because at this point I do feel like building a foundation would be better for her.

 

[RTT2]

Nothing is over for a 5 year old. I’ve been around here for quite a while and I generally skim and don’t respond to very long posts about very young kids bc the issue is never the kid or the gym. I think you should take some deep breaths and a few steps back and let her progress at the current gym as a 5 year old. See how things look next spring or summer and consider reaching out again to the first gym, but also try not to get too wrapped up in maximizing her “potential”.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Same daughter, this is her first year competing, she is 5 and is being told she will repeat bronze next year at 6. I do appreciate your advice. It’s definitely easy to get caught up in wanting the best of the best at every age. I just want to make sure that if she does love it and wants to go far she has the foundation to do it.

I 100% get the impulse; however, I truly believe (somewhat paradoxically) that as a parent the best way to set a young gymnast up for long-term success is to not worry about long term success. If you're worried about what lays far over the horizon, then every struggle feels like a catastrophic setback, every rough day feels like the dream is slipping out of reach.... which is really not a good mindset for keeping it enjoyable enough to keep doing it.

If you just sit back and enjoy watching her do something she enjoys, that relaxed mindset makes the sport much more fun and much less stressful for both you and her -- which makes her far more likely to stick with it for the long haul, and to put in her best effort on any given day.

 

[raenndrops]

No they won’t put 2 with 5s. I don’t know any sports class would do independent 2s as many are not potty trained. I think she meant 3s. And yes 3-5 is a reasonable range for “minis”- youngest independent rec and at many gyms, rec levels are based on age rather than skills, and there is no such a thing called “pre team tracked”. Many gyms also arbitrarily create so many confusing rec levels to maximize profits. If they can milk you as a cash cow for as long as they can, heck ya! The OP needs to talk to the team coach if possible, not the rec coach- specifically ask about the trajectories to team and if they have multiple, which team, and the skills needed for that team. Our team coach pulls kids out from the minis to put on team directly, it may not be linear way from rec - advanced rec - pre team - team. Good luck.

She had said in another post that her daughter is tiny.

And my YG moved to the independent class for 3-4 year olds when she was still 2.
Our gym only separates by age for the 1.5-3 yrs and the 3-4yrs. The main rec is all 5 & up, and is based on skills. OG moved up to the 5+ Level 2 (skipping level 1) when she was still 4. Level 3 was our highest rec level and was also used as pre-team (the girls who wanted pre-team came 2 days a week instead of 1).