MAG Fear of heights (x-posted in coaches)

[CreateMagic]

My son is 10, level 5 division 1. He's doing wonderfully, with one exception--he is afraid of heights. On the "lower" high bar, he can do a beautiful clear hip handstand, and cast handstand in both forward and reverse grip. When he is hand spotted, he has great giants. On pbars, he can easily do the straddle press handstand bonus, finishing in a straight body handstand with head aligned, just so long as the rails are all the way down. As soon as its at competition height (and he's tiny, so that's like only 4 clicks up), that handstand and his swing handstands aren't full handstands and/or his head is sticking way out. Its clearly a protective position for him. He doesn't do the press handstand on the high set of rings yet, but I don't know if that's due to ability or fear.

Has anyone else dealt with this? How??? His coaches are INCREDIBLE and have been working through this, but I'm looking for any way I can help too. Its really starting to affect his love of the sport. He was regional high bar champion the past two seasons, so this has been frustrating for him, not placing at all this season. He is doing 5d1 again next season, so we have time, but the mom in me hurts for him!

 

[Dahlialover]

The biggest thing you can do to help is to reassure him that it is normal and okay to feel afraid and that it’s normal and okay for it to take time to move skills from lower heights/ over pit/with a spotter to competition height and surfaces. My kid was doing gorgeous giants over the pit for a year before he started the *extremely difficult* process of relearning them over mats. Level 5 is typically a two-year project, largely because of the fear factor. Right now, kids want to push themselves to add all the bonus skills for regionals but that’s a bad idea because that kind of time pressure can turn a normal fear into a more serious mental block. I know it’s really difficult to convince a kid that age to see the big picture, but sometimes you have to go slow in order to go fast. He doesn’t need to do the scary skills at competition height right now. He should do the scary skills at a lower height over and over again for the next 3-6 months until they are so easy to him that it will be a trivial thing to increase the height. That’s what will set him up for sucess long term. Good luck convincing him of that!

 

[CreateMagic]

The biggest thing you can do to help is to reassure him that it is normal and okay to feel afraid and that it’s normal and okay for it to take time to move skills from lower heights/ over pit/with a spotter to competition height and surfaces. My kid was doing gorgeous giants over the pit for a year before he started the *extremely difficult* process of relearning them over mats. Level 5 is typically a two-year project, largely because of the fear factor. Right now, kids want to push themselves to add all the bonus skills for regionals but that’s a bad idea because that kind of time pressure can turn a normal fear into a more serious mental block. I know it’s really difficult to convince a kid that age to see the big picture, but sometimes you have to go slow in order to go fast. He doesn’t need to do the scary skills at competition height right now. He should do the scary skills at a lower height over and over again for the next 3-6 months until they are so easy to him that it will be a trivial thing to increase the height. That’s what will set him up for sucess long term. Good luck convincing him of that!

Thank you! The pit bar is actually worse for him. He says it feels higher. On the "low" bar, his skills are solid. The minute he goes to the pit bar or competition set, he says his mind just blanks and fear talks over.