Parents does your gymnast have outside activities?

[JoyAvenueMom]

Our 10-year-old level 7 is in the gym 16 hours a week (4 x 4). She tried several different things before gymnastics, but none of them clicked like this sport. She was taking piano the summer before starting on pre-team. We would like to put her back in to something musical: piano or voice. We tried a local studio for voice but didn't like the instructor. Realistically, between gym and all the math homework the school piles on to her, there isn't time for anything else during the week. She is very outgoing and still has lots of non-gym friends and a few former teammates who have left the sport.

Not gymnastics related...but a passion of mine: As a (part-time) children's music teacher, I vote for learning an instrument. Studies show tremendous benefits, including better scores in math, if a child plays a musical instrument. Most of the things learned can be readily translated to vocal music for easier success later.

 

[maryRS]

For our family it's always been a concern and it's why my daughter is a Y gymnast. She now trains 4 days a week, a total of 14 hours, but that is only as an optional, prior to that it was 3 days, 10 hours total. So she still trains under the norm but it is enough. She is a burn the candle at both ends kids so this suits her well. She works very hard in gymanstics, but she also has a very active social life both in and outside the gym

She plays field hockey on a club team and she played soccer in middle school for 7th and 8th grade. She used to play travel soccer but she quit because her team became very demanding with tournaments and practices and there were always gym conflicts. Field hockey was a trade off because it is less intense. We know ahead of time when all practices are and when all games are (scheduled day of week). She also runs track at school, as does almost every gymnast at her club, but even a lot of club gymnasts seem to run track around our area.

For us it was important that she not spend all her time on gymnastics as a young kid. We figured as she got older if it was something she wanted to stick with as her one and only it would be her choice. The flip side of that is the chance of that happening decreases every year when you are at a program that is good but not great. So the time to make the move would probably have been younger. She has been torn sometimes but ultimately she likes the flexibility to do other things. She is really looking forward to highschool to participate on either the field hockey or soccer team.

Our other children are boys and we have only been involved with sports such as soccer and basketball and to some extent swimming. Her brothers all played and play highschool ball and we felt they benefited from that immensely. Our oldest plays D1 soccer and my other son seems to be headed in the same direction. And while they played a lot of soccer in order to get to that point, the intensity didn't really pick up until 9th grade and much of that was school related. They were able to play other sports and be competitive.

The difference here is that she will more likely not be a college gymnast (it's really not even a goal at this point) nor will she be a college player on another sport unless she really gave up gymnastics. Time will tell.

I do think things are different with many sports though these days than how they were with my oldest. Now it seems every damn soccer team out there calls themselves elite, and the intensity is so much more. Seems to be the same with every sport.

 

[JoyAvenueMom]

Kipper is L4, and in the gym 15-18 hours per week. (we alternate Wednesdays so that she can participate in church activities.) She also participates in drama/choral/tone chimes through our church. We squeeze in a piano lesson here and there. She LOVES arts and crafts, so we work on activities together when she has down time.
Kippers's friend (also L4) in is middle school. While driving to the gym recently, she counted off 12 non-gym activities she does through school. These include various academic, music, and leadership groups. Not surprisingly, she misses at least one practice per week b/c of the other activities.

 

[gracyomalley]

DD 11 and DS 13/9 all play violin, are in Youth Orchestra, and DS 13 also plays in an adult symphony and a quartet. Boys are Level 5, 12 hours a week (DS 13 has stayed back in order to balance music/gym). DD is a good violinist and if she wasn't training 16+ hours a week (Level 7) would likely be doing more music, and she had to give up ballet last year in order to have one day without anything but school...

Its a big challenge, and we homeschool year round in order to allow the kids to have some home time/kid time as well...I do know that DD chose not to train 5 days this year (and not to move up to L8 therefore) partly because she wanted to continue in music....DS13's pediatrician thinks music and gym are a perfect balance for brain and body development - I'd like to send him the bill for the professional violin and all the gym stuff!!

 

[Quadqueen]

Not to take the post off-topic, but I think it's too bad that so many gyms do - IMO - too many hours at the lower levels (16.5 hours at L3?!!), so kids really don't have the opportunity to try other things. At least, if you are not doing the high hours when you're in a low compulsory level, it doesn't have to become a "way of life" from the very beginning. When the girls hit optionals, it is more expected/the norm that they need to give up other things. They shouldn't have to give up everything when they're in the beginning levels.

 

[htimcj]

DD11 plays the violin and that's it. SHe has ever wanted to other sports really. We tried soccer but didn't like it and she showed NO interest in other sports. She does do long distance race with us as a family but doesn't really train for any of the them. It is amazing what the conditioning at gym does for other sports. Crazy kid can still go out and run a 5k in 27 minutes and a 10k in less than an hour all with just the practice at gym!

 

[wnl256]

Not gymnastics related...but a passion of mine: As a (part-time) children's music teacher, I vote for learning an instrument. Studies show tremendous benefits, including better scores in math, if a child plays a musical instrument. Most of the things learned can be readily translated to vocal music for easier success later.

Thanks. I agree, but voice was a way of (hopefully) getting her back in to music easily. But that didn't work out. I would like to see her start piano again (she made some good progress when she last took lessons). Right now she would have very little time to practice except on the weekends. Summer is a different story.

 

[Dr Maleficent]

I agree wholeheartedly that it is really important to try to get some balance (heh heh, gym-related pun there!) As I said in another thread, piano is something that ds will be able to enjoy doing when he is 60, unlike gymnastics. Plus who knows when injury or fear will cause them to have to leave gymmastics, and if they literally have no other interests in life, I imagine that this would be even harder to adjust to. I appreciate that some of these kids are doing huge amounts of hours in the gym, but I believe it is important to think of life after gym too.

 

[shelovestoflip]

My daughter is 14 Level 9 (just started HS).

When she was younger, she would do an occasional after school activity.....various arts/crafts/music...run by the school....at school...so there was not transition/responsibility on my part to get her to said activity!

She was never into any other sport....preferred skating, swimming and tennis lessons but they were once a week on Saturday. I have always felt that afterschool time needed to be unscheduled when they were younger!

Since Level 7 or so, it's only gymnastics.

Honestly, btwn 20-24 hours a week at the gym plus school and HW, she doesn't have time for anything else.

FRankly, she loves her downtime to watch TV

HS has given her the opportunity to explore some other activities in the form of electives (they have great arts, culinary and community service).

She's committed to gymnastics and that's enough for now!

 

[MaryA]

Does anyone else have a kid that needs a lot of time at home?

My 9 year old Level 3 had to do a gym switch bc the hours were just too much for her. She's now repeating three so we could cut back on hours and only going 2 nights a week. I know it's not much compared to other kids but even now she will get overwhelmed and l will have to pull her early occasionally or there are a lot of tears when it's time to get up in the morning. She goes to an academically rigorous school, so lots of homework, but we manage to get most of that done on the weekend!

My dancer is like this. She would not be happy with my gymmie's schedule. She NEEDS time at home, mainly so that she can READ. My gymmie likes to read well enough, and ironically enough scores higher than my dancer on standardized reading tests, but she doesn't NEED to read every day the way her sister does. And my dancer is just happier in general when she has one day when she gets to come home from school and stay there, whereas I have heard my gymmie and her friends discussing, in the car on the way home from practice, how it would be torturous to just come home from school and do NOTHING!

To answer the OP's question, my DD has lots of interests, mainly outdoorsy/nature oriented. She loves to swim, snorkel, hike, go bird watching, catch bugs and lizards and frogs and help my husband build elaborate habitats for them, etc. Luckily these activities are mainly warm-weather activities, and meet season is during the colder months. But she doesn't play any other sports (never has) or have any other regular after-school activities. She is a 12-year-old level 8 (ish) and is in the gym 20 hours a week. She expressed interest in playing an instrument, and I was a music major, but still I told her no. When would she practice? Literally, every night she gets home between 8:30 and 9:00, eats dinner, showers, and goes to bed. Without sacrificing sleep, there is no time when she could possibly practice, except for weekends, and even that becomes difficult during meet season. Her best non-gym friend is the daughter of a former (British, male) Olympic gymnast. The friend does not do gymnastics, but does do soccer, golf, and tennis. Trying to get the 2 of them together outside of school is like trying to solve a complicated mathematical algorithm or something!

 

[Iwannabemargo]

We have tried running - natural talent, not interested, swimming lessons - she hated them but as we live on the coast swimming is a must, Cricket - good, but not interested, tennis, not interested, ballet - not hardcore enough, football- "Boring!", tag rugby - "can I do full contact" "NO!". For her its gym, gym gym. She is probably about your level 6, does 9 hours a week.

Other than that we do family stuff, walks, beaching, surfing, reading, cooking, gardening etc

 

[txgymfan]

LOL love that she only wants rugby if it is full contact. Gymnasts are tough!

 

[Iwannabemargo]

she is hardcore ! They only do Tag at primary (elementary) school and her big brother refused to play after getting told off for diving in for his 10th try !

 

[Seeker]

Mine has always wanted all gym all the time. We tried lots of different sports when she was younger and she would say "that was fun, when can i go back to gym". She really doesn't want to do anything else.

This is totally my DD. She is 9yr/L7 and really doesn't want to do anything else. She does play the violin, but that can be done during school hours so doesn't impact the gym. She is all about the gym.

 

[raenndrops]

OG's first year on team (old L4), she played T-ball that started about the same time she moved up... then finished the summer in Coach Pitch baseball. That fall it was soccer and that winter was cheerleading. The next year, she caught a softball with her eye at the first practice and softball lasted another 3 practices... soccer in the fall and basketball in the winter. She continued with fall soccer until this year. I don't think she is doing basketball this year either (she had to miss a meet last year because of a game), but she is in band and choir. She also did this tea party thing at church that ended tonight.
YG's first 2 years on team (Old L4), she did soccer and basketball. This year (New 3 by her choice), she did not play soccer and I haven't heard about basketball yet. She spent most of last basketball season doing cartwheels during practice and anytime she wasn't in the game
They get plenty of play time too. They have friends that aren't gymnasts come to the house... but they usually end up doing gymnastics related things - even when they are playing Barbies, lol.

 

[Ariekannairb]

I only allow each of my children 1 extra curricular activity, but we homeschool so we do several things together as a family. We did consider violin at one point, but she changed her mind right before it was time to start and that is just too expensive for her to not want to be there. It is important to us not to over load our children or ourselves so this is how it works out for our family!

 

[Flipflopz]

Lev 9/10. Also does choir, drama club, singing lessons, ballet (pointe dancer)

 

[Flipflopz]

Forgot to mention she is in 7th grade

 

[juststartingout]

My gymnast is 7 and in the gym 9 hours a wk (3 3hr days). She used to play baseball and was pretty good but due to scheduling conflict had to choose. She would also love to take a dance class and we have tried multiple times to work that out but the studios around here either require a full dance package of around 5 hours a week or do not have a class on her available days/times. Money is also an issue since she has 3 sisters and one of them is in college. The other two are in an extremely expensive dance school and the 5yo has also just started gymnastics. At some point she will probably also have to choose gym or dance since that studio requires package hours. My girls do archery and they enjoy it and are pretty good but that is with daddy so it works around our schedule. I will put the 7yo in a dance class if I can ever manage to find one for her that works.

 

[GYM0M]

DD is 7 years old, will be 8 in a couple of months. She trains every weekday, weekends off (except for competitions). She's at the gym 3:30-8:00. Five hours of that is completely devoted to TOPS training. However, last year she also danced competitively. I worry sometimes that she isn't involved in other sports, but the cold hard truth is, she is simply uninterested in anything other than gymnastics. It is difficult trying to balance school, gym, homework, etc. Every once in a blue moon she asks for a lazy day to which I happily oblige! On those days we rent a movie and eat ice cream together.