Parents Do you "reward" your kid?

[Mamabear123]

Recently I was talking to one of my gym mom friends and she mentioned that after competitions, one of the other moms does elaborate things for her DD if she doesn't medal because her kid is sad. She says that she takes her out to whatever restaurant that she wants, and buys her gifts. My friend says that she doesn't do this with her daughter and only gets her special stuff if she medals. Now... Maybe I'm parenting wrong, but my DD's only reward if she medals is... a medal. There have been some meets where DD leaves crying and sad and some where she is happy and jumping for joy. We sometimes get takeout after meets and will ask DD what she wants because she worked so hard that day. So my question is, do you do anything special for/with your kid after competitions?

 

[profmom]

We always feed them and praise them for what went well, regardless of the placements and scores. My son likes to catch up with teammates if possible after, so we usually try to meet at the same rest area. I don't think it makes sense to do something different if your child had a particularly good or bad meet in terms of outcomes. At this point, neither kid is particularly interested in deconstructing the meet with parents afterward, and we respect that.

You're doing it right.

 

[John]

I have the same take on this as you. The reward is the medal and her knowledge in knowing she had a good competition. It sounds like some of those gym moms are using rewards to keep DD interested in gymnastics. The desire for anything in life has to come inside someone.

 

[gymmomx2]

No rewards but we have a tradition of going out to eat afterwards and they get to pick the restaurant.

 

[Tuppy]

We always have sugary treats at competitions. No specific separate reward.

 

[Carly]

No special rewards from us either. If she placed she already received her reward. If she's sad, I try to cheer her up with encouraging words and hope that she decides to work harder.

 

[skschlag]

Sometimes we go out, sometimes we don't. There is no rhyme or reason except fro time of day and distance to home.

When ds was at regionals, trying to go to nationals, he really really really wanted In and Out Burger. He said that if he made nationals, he would go have a celebratory burger, and if he didn't make nationals, he would go have a consolation burger. (Luckily itw as celebratory as that was way more fun!) But really, the reward is the job well done, nothing else

He did have a teammate once, whose parents bribed the son with $50 if he beat ds at state. sigh.

 

[Mamabear123]

I have the same take on this as you. The reward is the medal and her knowledge in knowing she had a good competition. It sounds like some of those gym moms are using rewards to keep DD interested in gymnastics. The desire for anything in life has to come inside someone.

This is exactly it. The conversation came about by the mom telling me that the other girl is losing interest in gymnastics. She thinks that the way to keep the girls interested is by rewarding them only when they do well. She said that this is what she does with her DD so it makes her work extra hard because she knows that she will get a prize of she does well. This was all a complete shock to me and made me wonder if I should be doing more for DD. She always works super hard at competitions in my opinion.

 

[mommyof1]

We always go out to eat after meets because everyone is starving. Tinker Bell gets to choose the restaurant within reason (we are not driving 20 miles out of our way to go to Olive Garden for the 95th time, ick). The team doesn't usually meet up because everyone is in a hurry to get home after sitting there for 5 hours, but it's nice to get together with other families when possible because it helps to cushion the blow of any disappointments.

I do not bribe my child or promise rewards, but occasionally we do "celebrate" with ice cream or cupcakes for a big new skill. We also celebrate good report cards from school with her favorite expensive meal, partly to prevent her from asking for it at least once a week (are we celebrating anything today? then no, we are not going there today). I have also been known to purchase meet t-shirts and sweatshirts so Tink can have a wearable reminder of a really great meet. I'm going to have to dial it back this season because her drawers are bursting from last season.

 

[mommyof1]

This is exactly it. The conversation came about by the mom telling me that the other girl is losing interest in gymnastics. She thinks that the way to keep the girls interested is by rewarding them only when they do well. She said that this is what she does with her DD so it makes her work extra hard because she knows that she will get a prize of she does well. This was all a complete shock to me and made me wonder if I should be doing more for DD. She always works super hard at competitions in my opinion.

Sounds like the problem here is with the other kid and mom, not you and DD.

 

[kayjaybe]

Well, good luck to her with that.

This sport is WAY too hard for that to last for long. I if the child doesn’t have a true love for it, the external rewards just won’t be enough in the long run.

 

[Carly]

Well, good luck to her with that.

This sport is WAY too hard for that to last for long. I if the child doesn’t have a true love for it, the external rewards just won’t be enough in the long run.

I totally agree. When your kid is in the gym for 20 or more hours a week and missing fun activities with friends, they have to love it. No amount of treats, toys or other rewards are going to work.

 

[Mamabear123]

Well, good luck to her with that.

This sport is WAY too hard for that to last for long. I if the child doesn’t have a true love for it, the external rewards just won’t be enough in the long run.

I totally agree with this. My friends daughter has a crazy amount of passion for gymnastics so I actually dont think the special rewards are needed in her case. I think she is correlating her DD's passion with the things that she gets her after she does well. Her DD wants to be at the gym all the time and if she doesn't do well at competitions, she works out like crazy at home and works routines endlessly. My DD loves gym but doesnt care to be there all the time. They are in level 3 by the way so very young little people.

 

[Mamabear123]

Also, just for perspective, my friends DD and my DD had very similar scores throughout last season they always placed right next to each other. The other girl that gets rewarded for being sad, her scores were always a few points lower and she didn't place very often.

 

[Flicfliclay]

This is an interesting topic! I always feel so bad at meets when parents bring their kids bouquets of flowers and stuffed animals.. I have NEVER done that and my daughter has asked a time or two, why don't we do that? My reply is that I think it is silly and that just being here to compete is reward enough. There are times that we go eat after, but most of the time she just wants to get home and shake out her meet hair and get her leo off! LOL. I do admit there are times we might get a new leotard if she does particularly well, but that is usually at state or regionals.

 

[mommyof1]

I always feel so bad at meets when parents bring their kids bouquets of flowers and stuffed animals.

My kiddo has always absolutely hated being given flowers for any reason. I cannot figure out why. I think it has something to do with their being "too girly." She is really offended that she is expected to wear a wrist corsage to an upcoming father-daughter dance.

 

[kimute]

No rewards. If the motivation isn't intrinsic, we will move on. For my DD just competing is the reward. She loves the competitions. We do hook up with team mates after meets and the girls end up laughing and having fun no matter what their meet performance was like.

 

[NutterButter]

I can almost understand the idea of a consolation gift for a very young kid but let's play this out...what kind of teenagers and then adults do these kids become having learned that they need or are entitled to a new thing to cope with sadness and disappointment. The meet is the celebration of all the hard work in the gym. As others have said, motivation has to be intrinsic. Getting a medal is nice but it's not the reason to do a sport. And besides, every meet has a gift anyways.

 

[Randomactsofcheer]

DD has only medaled once at a meet, and she got a “GREAT JOB” from us. We don’t reward her beyond praise for a job well done, and we don’t console her with gifts when she doesn’t place.

Gymnastics (and her other activities) is something that DD chooses to do. She has commited to doing them and we expect her to try her best at each of her activities as part of that commitment. We don’t reward DD for doing what she is supposed to do. She is expected to work hard at a meet and, whether that hard work results in a medal or not, we do not reward her with gifts for doing what is expected of her and honoring her commitments. We tell her how proud we are of her and make sure she knows her hard work is not going unnoticed. The only time we reward her is if we feel she has pushed through a major adversity or gone above and beyond our expectations. And even then, we don’t usually do physical gift rewards. We might let her stay up 15 minutes later to watch TV when she has done nothing but school, gym, and homework all week. Or let her skip practicing piano one day when she (on her own) practices extra all week. Or pick out all the games we play on family game night.

 

[reluctant]

Recently I was talking to one of my gym mom friends and she mentioned that after competitions, one of the other moms does elaborate things for her DD if she doesn't medal because her kid is sad. She says that she takes her out to whatever restaurant that she wants, and buys her gifts. My friend says that she doesn't do this with her daughter and only gets her special stuff if she medals. Now... Maybe I'm parenting wrong, but my DD's only reward if she medals is... a medal. There have been some meets where DD leaves crying and sad and some where she is happy and jumping for joy. We sometimes get takeout after meets and will ask DD what she wants because she worked so hard that day. So my question is, do you do anything special for/with your kid after competitions?

Your frie

This is exactly it. The conversation came about by the mom telling me that the other girl is losing interest in gymnastics. She thinks that the way to keep the girls interested is by rewarding them only when they do well. She said that this is what she does with her DD so it makes her work extra hard because she knows that she will get a prize of she does well. This was all a complete shock to me and made me wonder if I should be doing more for DD. She always works super hard at competitions in my opinion.

Your friend is wrong and is teaching her child a horrible lesson. If doing gymnastics is not rewarding in and of itself, she needs to stop doing it.