Parents How can I figure out if my daughter is still into this? The pressure is on…

[JPC13]

What?? That’s stupid, no one needs 20 hours a week to learn to do a cartwheel on the floor and a pullover. For level 2, we did closer to 20 hours a MONTH

Yes. It’s insane. My daughter didn’t even compete level 2. That gym does have a bunch of level 10 and junior elite prospects. Even so, I can’t image those girls even trained level 2.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

First a head injury they didn’t immediately inform you of. Umm just no.

I live in an area where there are many options for gymnastics from high JO hours to lower JO hours to high Xcel hours to really low Xcel hour.

I’d have (and would have) a gym that worked for us.

Our gym, after level 3 training can be 9-12 hours during the school year.
We can say yes/no to individual meets. This works for us. Mine is a L8

 

[Tammie]

im trying to cook meals that provide her with the energy to do this sport, im drowning.

I just re-read this and I think I might have a couple of ideas for you(or maybe you do them already)

On Sunday, family dinner is around grilled chicken. Then I make extra(like a club pack)chicken breast, slice and put in the freezer. Takes me 30min & saves me all week!!

Then every Wed & Sunday I wash and chop lettuce.

As needed I make dip cups full of bacon bits, bagel chips(her crouton of choice at the moment), and ranch(I make my own, but no need for this, my kids are just picky & I'm indulgent).

So each day she makes her own grilled chicken salad by putting lettuce and grape tomatoes in a box, then grabbing a bag with chicken and 3 containers with her extras. Less than 5min.

It also helps with dinners that aren't "gymnast friendly"...ya know when you are just done & want to have mozzarella sticks for dinner...or the little kids want grilled cheese or mac&cheese. The gymnast can grab a bag of chicken to add healthy protein to her meal.

We also keep big bags of frozen veggies in the freezer(5-10min sauté and they're good), plus individual portions of cooked rice(in bags).

Add rice, chicken, and veggies to a bowl...can add your choice of sauce(Verde, salsa, ranch(i have weird kids), whatever) and it is a gymnast approved meal with little effort...and the family can have something else.

I also keep boiled eggs in the fridge, buy jerky and meat sticks in mass quantities, have fruit/berries on hand, most times have avocados on the counter, and other such things(my produce budget is larger than most family's food budget-lol).

Basically have the makings of a super quick, healthy meal readily available anytime

This has helped me tremendously as I have 5 kids, 4 of which have no reason to eat high protein meals. It also helps because my gymnast is the picky eater in the house-so she doesn't want to eat a whole list of things-but making a sandwich isn't always the best option for her.

Just a thought that might help. I know the days you are talking about, the days you just want to have a Loaf of bread with garlic oil for dinner...the day you want to make mozzarella sticks and call it a day. I have more of those the older I get-but still have a gymnast, so I had to find a way. I imagine you have many of those days when you've had a rough day at work & you just want pizza for dinner!!

One week I knew we were gonna be extra crazy, so I made burgers on Saturday, chicken on Sunday. She was having chicken at lunch, burger patty for dinner(sometimes burger & chicken for dinner). It is all about her being able to grab healthy foods quickly-without me having to spend an hour plus each time!!

I keep thinking of you, my heart goes out to your situation....it's tough being mom!!

 

[CuriousCate]

Decided to reply to my own thread instead of making a new post because why waste the space but, side rant.
I hate this sport. I love the sport but I hate being in it. I hate the pressure. I hate the schedule. I hate that we have to sign a contract and if we miss two meetings we get charged money for it. I hate how expensive literally every single thing is. I hate the long travels to meets. I hate not knowing what level she’s going to be in, what the practice times are, what she is excelling at or struggling with. I hate that we have 1 week from the time we get the email to the date hundreds of dollars are due. I hate that there’s no feedback from coaches. I hate that the coaches sit around eating popcorn while my kid is vaulting. I hate that she fell off the bar and landed directly on the top of her head and no coach reached out to me until the following day via email while I was at work to even tell me about it. I hate that my almost 9 year old has 20+ hours of gymnastics a week and I won’t get to see her barely at all during the school year if this keeps up. I hate that I let her do the sport at all but I know she loves it and I don’t want to pull her away from it.
I try to keep this all to myself. I try to get on board. Im doing my own financial gymnastics to make the sport work for us. Im talking positively about it, im listening, im encouraging, im trying to cook meals that provide her with the energy to do this sport, im drowning.
She’s loving it. Her best friends are at the gym. Her 2nd home, if you ask her, is that gym. Her dream is to live at the gym. She already wants to coach just like her favorite coach (who does not eat popcorn while the girls are flipping) and she wants to get to optional so she can choreograph her routine etc.
i second guess the gym and my decision to be there. I question the amount of hours - 20 per week during the school year for a 4th grader?
If someone asked me I wouldn’t do this over again. I’d put her in swimming. Track. Anything else. At this point she isn’t burned out by I am. And I sense that she Will burn out if she keeps up the hours. Our contract doesn’t really have an adjustment for changing levels or anything. And you can’t get out of it without losing upwards of $1000. I just hate it.
Sorry. This rant kind of bubbled up this morning. Gymnastics is an intense sport and August is a hard month and I hate it here.

This was my kid and me in a nutshell. She quit last year and hasn't looked back. I did have to encourage her that it was okay to try other things so she could see that there was life outside of the gym. It took her getting to middle school and wanting more normalcy for it to really hit home for her. She was training 20+ hrs in 3rd grade for level 5/7 in one year. That should have been my red flag but I thought I was following her lead. Truth is that she didn't want to stay because of her true love but more because it was the only thing she knew. So we made her do a few volleyball clinics, a lacrosse camp, pole vault, rock climbing etc and because gym training gave her so much strength, she was consistently immediately invited to every team from camps and clinics. That is really what it took to give her the confidence to leave as a level 8. She still doesn't have the same level of friendships in her new sports that she had at gym, but that said, her two besties from gym are still her besties. Good luck. I know it is hard.

Side note, it really sounds like if she loves the sport but red flags are everywhere, it would be worth it to try another gym before making a decision.

 

[Tammie]

This was my kid and me in a nutshell. She quit last year and hasn't looked back. I did have to encourage her that it was okay to try other things so she could see that there was life outside of the gym. It took her getting to middle school and wanting more normalcy for it to really hit home for her. She was training 20+ hrs in 3rd grade for level 5/7 in one year. That should have been my red flag but I thought I was following her lead. Truth is that she didn't want to stay because of her true love but more because it was the only thing she knew. So we made her do a few volleyball clinics, a lacrosse camp, pole vault, rock climbing etc and because gym training gave her so much strength, she was consistently immediately invited to every team from camps and clinics. That is really what it took to give her the confidence to leave as a level 8. She still doesn't have the same level of friendships in her new sports that she had at gym, but that said, her two besties from gym are still her besties. Good luck. I know it is hard.

Side note, it really sounds like if she loves the sport but red flags are everywhere, it would be worth it to try another gym before making a decision.

Love it, I am so glad that she was able to follow her heart!! I see far too many gym parents that are like "well, were already this far, might as well keep going to this point, which then becomes that point...parents that won't allow a child to quit, even when they're begging to be done. In our gym, I see many who say things about gym being an 'investment' and they don't want to 'loose their investment.' it's awful!! I think those kids are more likely to feel abused in the gym too, they're just miserable & it's not the coaches fault, they're doing their best to engage an uninterested, unmotivated young woman-full of hormones.

I am also glad you're still on CB to give another perspective on quitting gymnastics!! That's awesome!!

I am sure your daughter will eventually get there with the other sport teammates. She's not with them the same number of hours she was with the gym friends, so it will come. Be patient(I know it hard, especially when your child is involved!!)

Btw-how did you figure out that you weren't actually following her lead, but contributibg to the problem??

Mine trains a million hours as well, but has had time off and we actually ARE following her lead-so I think that is such a hard thing to figure out as a parent!! I'm not sure I would recognize it!

I admire your courage to realize that something wasn't working for you and your family-and act on it, despite all the time, money, and tears invested into gymnastics through the years!

Good luck on your journey ahead!!

 

[CuriousCate]

Love it, I am so glad that she was able to follow her heart!! I see far too many gym parents that are like "well, were already this far, might as well keep going to this point, which then becomes that point...parents that won't allow a child to quit, even when they're begging to be done. In our gym, I see many who say things about gym being an 'investment' and they don't want to 'loose their investment.' it's awful!! I think those kids are more likely to feel abused in the gym too, they're just miserable & it's not the coaches fault, they're doing their best to engage an uninterested, unmotivated young woman-full of hormones.

I am also glad you're still on CB to give another perspective on quitting gymnastics!! That's awesome!!

I am sure your daughter will eventually get there with the other sport teammates. She's not with them the same number of hours she was with the gym friends, so it will come. Be patient(I know it hard, especially when your child is involved!!)

Btw-how did you figure out that you weren't actually following her lead, but contributibg to the problem??

@Tammie Sorry - just saw this! thanks for the props...I really don't deserve them, but I'll take them where I can! And full disclosure, my younger kiddo is still a gymnast or I prob would not be on CB anymore!

So for my older DD who quit, we started to notice that she was rarely excited for practice - not dreading it or anything negative, but the fire was dying. It seemed more like just a thing she did rather than a passion. She rarely came home with stories and she no longer came home excited about her accomplishments. She would mention them briefly when asked how practice went, but that excitement and drive had just faded. I think it really hit me when I found a few videos on her phone of her landing her double back dismount from bars and connecting a switch leap-BT on beam that she had taken several weeks prior and yet I had no idea she had these skills.

I skirted around it for a while, saying things like "you know you're so athletic you'd be great at any sport" or "you'll be starting middle school soon and there are so many more fun things you can try there" and she just never took the bait.

And then finally one day, I asked her how things were going and she replied very simply "It's fine. We tried on the new leos for sizing today. And I'm officially registered as a L8 for meets." It was so matter of fact that I outright said, "K - you know you don't have to do this, right? This is *your* sport and your choice. I only ask that if you are thinking about stopping gym, that you make the decision before I pay $425 for the new leo and all the meet fees." And that was it...she said "Really? I can quit? Just like that?" And even though my heart broke a little bit, we met with the coaches the very next day for her to give them her decision and she agreed to go to one more practice so I could see all of the new skills since I'd never get to see them competed. And here we are.

 

[Pokitren]

Hey y’all. I have an almost 9 yr old, she’s practicing for level 5 or 6 (?) and going into 4th grade. In level 4, she had about 12.5 hrs of practice per week. Practices were Tuesday / Thursday and Saturday, she got home at 9:30 on weekdays. There was an adjustment as she returned to public school after homeschooling in 2020. She struggled a bit with losing confidence, etc, which we bounced back from. But 12 hrs was a lot. She got through the season and was SO excited to move on and get new skills. Well…for the summer, she got moved up to a group that practices 20.5 hours a week. Coach doesn’t talk about levels til end of summer. She’s been pushing through but she is Tired. Now, bills started coming in. A few hundred for camp, another 200 for warm ups, and we have to decide and commit to all of our selected meets by July 28th. I don’t know what level she will be except that the coach, when I asked, said “I’m hoping for level 5.” (So no cross country travel meet thank goodness.) We don’t have a practice schedule but she was included in the day program invite for kids who homeschool and that schedule would be 22.5 hours. The contract for the year is due in August, before school even starts. Assessments are upwards of $600 plus monthly costs of upwards of $300. Even though she has been gently conditioning her ankles at home, she’s been complaining about her foot hurting lately. She’s tired. She’s cranky. I ask if she wants to quit and she says no. She finally settled into this grueling schedule. Then recently on a drive I said, if you have the same amount of hours now, but also school, will you want to do it anymore? And she said no. Now, she had a bad fall, landed directly on her head, and even though she told me about it, the head coach didn’t actually reach out to me til the next morning.
All of this to say: From the start, this has been her sport and her goals to achieve. I write the checks and drive her to practice and cheer her on. I don’t want to encourage her to quit if she truly feels in her heart that this is all worth it. But I am really questioning if it’s worth it. For so many reasons. I don’t want to crush her dreams or manipulate her to feel like she wants to quit if she doesn’t. This was her journey to take. How do I guide her??

I would consider other purposes for her classes. Maybe she's taking classes because of a boyfriend or friends? Maybe she doesn't want to take a class, but her social environment won't let her quit? I would dig deeper before making a final decision.
Either way, health is more important than all of the above.