Anon Do I dare tell a coach the truth?

[Anonymous (1492)]

My 9-year-old is on the verge of quitting gymnastics because his new coach’s coaching style is causing him to experience intolerable anxiety. He’s just took two weeks off and is only attending partial practices right now due to stress. The coach is open to making changes but I’ve been *****footing around telling him that he’s the problem because I’m not sure how he’ll take it. The gym owner and coach are genuinely motivated not to lose my kid because he’s valuable to them as a junior elite prospect. I’m starting to think that I might as well just be honest. If I were to be honest, this is the email I would send.

I’m pretty sure this is the kind of email that one should never actually send, and I would appreciate advice on how to communicate my concerns in a manner that won’t alienate the coach permanently.


Dear Coach,

I’ve been working with Johnny to identify the causes of his anxiety and to come up with coping strategies. We’ve made some progress and I have some suggestions for things you can do to help Johnny have a positive gymnastics experience.

1. The most important thing Johnny needs right now is for you to respect his boundaries. Johnny is very self-aware and self-motivated and, if he tells you that he not ready for a skill, physically or mentally, he needs you to listen to him. He does not respond well coercion or intimidation. When you push him, you undermine both his gymnastics and his relationship with you.
2. When feasible, ask him “What do you want to work on and what do you think you need to work on?” The odds are high that he will chose a similar assignment to you would have chosen for him but the experience will be totally different for him. Johnny is very good at setting goals and pursuing them with determination. However he needs to be given an opportunity to set his own goals. This is his journey. He needs a sense of ownership.
3. Stop asking him why he made a mistake. What do you expect him to say “I messed up because I suck at gymnast”? That’s not helpful. Often, the reason he fails to apply corrections is because you give him an overwhelming number of corrections at the same time.
4. Temporarily, minimize the frequency of him doing saluted routines or have him do them with the other group. Johnny is having a fight-or-flight reaction when he salutes you for routines. He has never had competition anxiety in the past and I do not want this anxiety reaction to become ingrained in him forever.
5. Occasionally, instead of giving him a correction, ask him what he thinks he needs to do differently. This will create an opportunity for a little bit of dialog and make the process feel more collaborative.
6. Try to find some opportunities for him to experience small successes. He needs a chance to feel good about himself. Challenges and contests are incredibly motivating to him.
7. Offer him positive feedback about things like effort and perseverance rather than just performance. He’s starting to experience some toxic perfectionism and he needs to feel like your approval is not contingent of perfection.

I know this I’m being blunt here but Johnny going to quit the sport he loves if something doesn’t change. I think you want my kid to be successful and I hope you will consider this feedback.

 

[JBS]

I would just schedule a meeting to meet with the coaches. I personally would not do this via email.

 

[Issagymnast]

Safe Sport indicates that if a child wants to leave the sport could be due to possible coach misconduct. We have the same issue. 1 coach is problematic. Sad. Im sorry.
They wont like email because it tells them what to do. The egos will be offended.

 

[Anonymous (6391)]

Firstly - sympathy. I’ve been there with an anxious kid and a ‘tough’ new coach. We ended up resolving it really positively and the coach went on to become one of my daughter’s all time favourites.

I don’t think sending a coach a long list of detailed instructions that they have to follow for the privilege of continuing to work with your precious petal is going to play well. And honestly, that’s how it reads even though that isn’t your intention. Don’t send that email.

You have to advocate for your kid, of course, and I think the point you make at number five is a good one. Solutions are always better when they are arrived at through a collaborative process. Ask for a meeting so that you can brainstorm strategies to support your son’s participation, but don’t open with a hard list of demands - let them evolve through the discussion.

I sent an email on this topic once, and it was just a quick heads up about the issue (eg: x is demonstrating some anxiety and a bit of unhealthy perfectionism around gymnastics right now), and a request for a quick meeting to brainstorm some strategies that might be easily incorporated into their program.

 

[txgymfan]

I love what you’re saying. Your son wants to be treated with respect and he deserves that. I’m not sure a coach would take it well, it might get the response of “ don’t tell me how to coach”.

There are coaches on this board who coach very much like your wording. Unfortunately, that has not always been common in gymnastics coaching.

I agree with scheduling a meeting with the coaches. I would also DISCREETLY look at other options in case your meeting and the follow up does not go as well as you hope.

 

[Anonymous (cbaf)]

I would highly advise having this conversation in person, rather than over email. Perhaps you could send an email to set up a time to talk with the coach?

If you really do feel the need to send an email like this, here are some things I see in what you have written that may cause a problem from my point of view:

Point #3 comes off as very... condescending. If that were written to me, I would read that as trying to tell me that I'm looking for kids to say they are bad at gymnastics, when that's not the case for most coaches.

A lot of your points may be taken the wrong way. Some coaches have the attitude that because they are the coach, there doesn't need to be collaboration because they know what they're doing. Especially at this age, for most children, and this may not be the case with your child, they aren't going to be able to set their own goals, come up with corrections, etc. Again, not saying this is the case here, but it's the case for most children their age.


As an aside, I've definitely been the anxious child and also coached some very anxious children. I do agree that setting boundaries is a good start. I also think that teaching your child to communicate with the coach about anxieties is good. Sometimes coaches take things the wrong way if an email like this comes from the parent and they haven't heard anything from the child (don't know if this is the case, but I figured I'd throw it out there). Is your child working with a sports mental health professional? Often times they will have scenario-specific strategies for the child and be able to effectively communicate the needs of the child with the coach in an appropriate manner.


What you bring up in point #4 is interesting. A fight-or-flight response isn't necessarily bad, it's a natural reaction to something that is anxiety-inducing. Oftentimes (and again, not necessarily the case here, just my two cents), the best thing to do is to push through it. If your child continues to do the routines and begins to learn that nothing bad will happen, the fight-or-flight response will eventually dissipate as the brain registers that there is no real threat, and will begin to create new neural pathways.

Point #7 makes me wonder why your child needs the coach's approval all the time. Yes, your child should want to be told he's doing good, but it is the coach's job to correct things. Your child should be working on being able to feel as if he is doing a good job based on how much effort he is putting in. Yes it's important to have skills look clean, but at the same time, effort is just as important, and things will never be perfect.

That's just my thoughts, and I'm happy to clarify anything you need clarified about what I said!

 

[Anonymous (1492)]

I should add that we already had a meeting with the coach and the owner where I begged to have my child moved back to his old training group with his old coach. The new coach was upset that I wasn’t giving him specific feedback on what he could do differently. At the time, I wasn’t in fix-it mode, I just wanted to get my kid out of the situation.

The owner wouldn’t let my kid change training groups but he arranged for him to do some rotations with his old group and he started dropping in on my son’s practices and helping to coach. The owner is putting a substantial amount of effort into trying to figure this out. I think I should just meet with him and explain the situation and provide suggestions.

 

[Anonymous (1492)]

At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is point #1. The rest is just ranting.

 

[Anonymous (26e4)]

If at all possible, I would phrase things not as "this is what he needs, please do it", but as questions, e.g. " Is there any possibility to do more of x rather than y? It would really help him." E.g. x is asking what he thinks he needs to work on (whether drills or corrections) rather than just giving instructions. Or "Would it be possible to opt out of saluting routines for a bit?" (followed by explanation)

I agree that having the meeting in person would be better, but I would still phrase things as "these are the things that would help" rather than "this is what you need to do".

 

[Anonymous (1492)]

Well, I accidentally had the meeting when I was totally unprepared and tired and angry and on the verge of putting in our notice because I couldn’t handle driving to gym with a kid crying in the backseat one more time!



But it turned out good. The coach apologized to my son for crossing his boundaries and told him that he wanted him to be able to talk with him about how he’s feeling. He said things I wanted to hear about wanting to build a collaborative relationship and not wanting my child to feel forced or intimidated. He also acknowledged that the way he looks and talks to kids makes them think he is angry and told my kid that he is has never been angry with him. (Unfortunately, he definitely seemed to think it was on the kids to get used to his harsh tone of voice and constant scowling, rather than for him to try to be a less intimidating). I figured out that the coach must have difficulty picking up social cues because he seemed totally surprised that he was the source of my child’s distress or really that he was having any distress (he was at the meeting where I said that my kid was going to quit if he couldn’t move to a different coaches group). I’m glad to know that he wants open communication but I think that it’s going to be up to me to train my child to be incredibly direct because this guy isn’t going to pick up on any kid of subtly. The coach was like “he’s never said no to me” and I had to explain that if a little kid works up the nerve to ask the scary coach for an alternative assignment, it’s a big deal and they are trying to tell you no. (The one time my kid asked to take a break from a scary skill the coach said “Fine, so you are saying you never want me to work with you on this skill ever again?” My son felt coerced into doing the skill and he did it but he has hated and feared the coach every day since that happened). I’m going to need to teach my son some scripted lines like “No, I do not feel safe doing that skill right now. Can I please have a different assignment.” I don’t think that the coach understands that trust is something that has to be earned and that it can be lost. I kept trying to explain that I needed him to try to go a little easier on him while their reestablished trust and he kept a saying but I need to push him to learn junior elite skills and I had to tell him “fine! We quit junior elite! I only care about my child’s well-being.” This guy doesn’t seem to understand that when my kid feels safe and happy, he gets skills rapidly and when he feels scared and pressured, he regresses. Hopefully, now that I’ve said “no junior elite” he’ll back off so my kid can actually get his junior elite skills. Blarg. I hope we can find a way to work with this guy.