I was just wondering how all of you deal with the ups and downs that the gymnast goes through.
We have days where not much is said about practice - things went well or good enough and DD is "satisfied." But tonight (and every so often) there is the bad practice when conditioning seemed harder than usual, she made no kips, or she couldn't remember the mean routine. Then all of the doubt sets in!
"I am not ready for our first meet next weekend."
"My vault was terrible tonight and coach said if you don't complete the vault you get a zero!"
"I can't remember the second half of the beam routine."
"What if I mess up my shoot through on bars?"
I try so hard to be her biggest cheerleader and I don't lie to her. I don't tell her she is better than she is, but I know that vault has NEVER been a problem so I need to get her past her moment of self-doubt. I try to reinforce that gymnastics is a long process of building and improving, that sometimes you just have a "bad day" at practice, or that she shouldn't compare herself to her teamates because the coaches know what she needs to work on.
When the confidence sinks and they wonder if they are any good at this sport or that they are not ready for the next meet...what do you do??
We have days where not much is said about practice - things went well or good enough and DD is "satisfied." But tonight (and every so often) there is the bad practice when conditioning seemed harder than usual, she made no kips, or she couldn't remember the mean routine. Then all of the doubt sets in!
"I am not ready for our first meet next weekend."
"My vault was terrible tonight and coach said if you don't complete the vault you get a zero!"
"I can't remember the second half of the beam routine."
"What if I mess up my shoot through on bars?"
I try so hard to be her biggest cheerleader and I don't lie to her. I don't tell her she is better than she is, but I know that vault has NEVER been a problem so I need to get her past her moment of self-doubt. I try to reinforce that gymnastics is a long process of building and improving, that sometimes you just have a "bad day" at practice, or that she shouldn't compare herself to her teamates because the coaches know what she needs to work on.
When the confidence sinks and they wonder if they are any good at this sport or that they are not ready for the next meet...what do you do??