Parents How to tell if you are a pushy, crazy or overbearing gym parent

[NOG]

I took the quiz and was in negative numbers... whew



I personally really struggle with this one. DD's training sessions are two hours long, we live a forty minute drive away. One session a week she is dropped off by another parent (due to my work commitments) and obviously I don't watch.
The rest of the time I do stay at the gym. I can't justify the petrol costs to drive back home and only be there for forty minutes before leaving again. Some of the time I run errands, but often I have nothing that needs to be done and there is only so much time you can spend aimlessly wandering around the shops.


I do tend to have my head buried in a book or paperwork a lot of the time, but I am right there on the edge of the floor (small gym, no waiting area/office or parent room). Until I joined the CB I never considered it a problem, I watch ds practice soccer all the time, but now sometimes I wonder if she would be better without me there? Certainly there is a lot of opinion that suggests I shouldn't be there. Does this push me over to the problem parent? I hope not....

Same boat here! I bring the kindle along to every practice and read a lot, sometimes it's a bit too crazy to read but I do love to read. Now, I'm guilty of watching (even when reading, I do look up and watch lol), but I'm not analyzing her or anyone else's dd's every move. I "think" that makes me safe, lol. After so many years of having to stay....and so many years of having to stay in my future (assuming she's still doing this sport, she won't be of driving age for a long time lol), I think that I've developed a happy medium of watching without critiquing. When she get in the car at the end of practice, I ask "how was practice today?" If she says "good" we're done discussing, If she wants to talk about an issue she's having then I give her her opening to vent. For the most part the answer is "good, and she ellaborates on how her day went". We're done talking about it within 10 min. I do break those unwritten rules once in a while, but not often and usually only if I see something that really concerned me.

Hope I can still claim that negative score total

 

[Deanna]

I was also in the negative. (how in the world did i miss this thread until now?) I have often worried that I am too UNinvolved. Because I dont go to practices. I dont write down EVERY ONEs scores. I dont care how she does at meets other than that she had a great time. I feel like maybe I dont ask her enough questions, or what have you. I dont want her to think I dont care..but I dont want to be over bearing..so I do at times wonder if Im going the other way..you know?

 

[Bella's Mom]

Well we can all take some solace in not being crazy pageant moms! Right now there is a story in the news about a pageant mom giving her 8YO botox injections. Now THAT'S being a crazy mom.

Now I'm off to take the quiz. Like Deanna, I missed this thread so I've never determined how crazy I am. I'll report back unless the numbers are too embarrassing. LOL

ETA: -3. Whew.... I'll admit, I was afraid I was a little crazy.

 

[MaryA]

Well we can all take some solace in not being crazy pageant moms! Right now there is a story in the news about a pageant mom giving her 8YO botox injections. Now THAT'S being a crazy mom.

I saw that too! Insane! Sometimes I wonder if the little girls gymnastics world starts to come a little close to the craziness of the little girl pageant world, but then I think, we don't put makeup on our girls (though I've heard of some gyms requiring a bit), we don't dress them up in wildly-age-inappropriate costumes, and that this is an actual sport and it makes our daughters depend on their strength rather than on their looks. I suppose the similarities are that both are wildly expensive, and that parents tend to go nutso!

My score was a zero. I do watch when I can, but it's mostly to hang out with my friends who are also gym moms. I wouldn't dream of trying to coach from the sidelines (or from anywhere else). It makes it easy not to coach when you know next to nothing about the sport! And I do keep track of her scores (but nobody else's) over the course of the season because it's so much fun to watch them go up over the season (my short-term memory is shot to heck... I can't remember her scores from event to event, much less meet to meet) and to be able to say, "Look, you went up in everything except for vault this meet!" or whatever. My husband and I do argue about it though... mostly around stuff like my trying to plan vacations so that Kathy will miss the least amount of practice time possible (she's still missing about 3 weeks of practice spread out over the summer), or me saying that I wish that the YMCA team could get more hours in the gym or musing about the possibility of moving her to the private team (he thinks it's already too much) and stuff like that.

 

[Deanna]

LOL. Yeah, I believe the pagent world is a totaly different animal. I could never picture putting Kadee in a little skimpy bathing suit, with full makeup and hair..and having her shake her rear end. I have nothing against pagents..as long as its age appropriate.
As far as the scores. I always write Kadee's down in the booklet thing they hand out. (or make you buy i should say). But just hers. I felt SOOOO stupid at her first meet. I was looking through the booklet..and I said to my husband. Wow, over 300 girls, and NO ONE is scratching an event. Everyone must be in good health. He looks at me, blinks a couple times, and says...Thats a place for you to write their scores down, it doesnt mean they are going to compete that event. I have noticed there are some parents that write EVERYONES scores down that are in the same level and age group as their child. Im too busy watching and enjoying the competition to worry about keeping track of everyones scores. I know what Kadees scores are and thats it. Its as much a surprise to me when they start doing awards as it is to Kadee..lol. And at this age Kadee doesnt understand the difference between her getting 6th AA or 1stAA..all she knows is she got a medal, ribbon, trophy..ect. And that she got to have fun with her friends.

 

[EmmasMommy]

I also scored negative. I agree with those who said they were thrown by some of the questions. People who would answer yes to those questions probably don't need to take a test to know they are being pushy. But I guess you never know!

 

[Iwannabemargo]

Hmmmmm - so ending up coaching at dd's gym as "well you're here all the time so you might *** well do something" does that qualify as pushy ???

 

[bogwoppit]

Hmmmmm - so ending up coaching at dd's gym as "well you're here all the time so you might *** well do something" does that qualify as pushy ???

No that happens to tons of parents. PLUS, and this is a big plus, you are a volunteer. That is virtually unheard of in the US and Canada. Including that in the US you do not even have to be qualified to coach! I think that makes your daughters club extremely lucky!

 

[bar princess's mom]

I struggle with this internally. On the surface, I do all of the things I am supposed to do to be a non-crazy gym mom. I drive her, pay, cheer her on and give her the opportunity to discuss what she wants to. I don't stay and watch often (maybe once a month for an hour or so) or push her in anyway. So far, she is self-driven and enthusiastic but for the most part, everything has come easy for her so we have not had any issues.

But here is where I struggle, as a former competitive (not good) gymnast, I look back on my childhood and wish my parents had pushed me harder or placed more importance on gymnastics. Don't get me wrong, they were supportive in the fact that they paid for it all, drove me where I needed to be, attended all my meets and told me how proud they were of me. However, I think if they had maybe encouraged me more or pushed a little, I might have been better, tried harder. If they had approached it in the same manner as they did with school where bringing home grades below my "potential" was completely unacceptable, what could I have accomplished. I don't know. Maybe it would have backfired or maybe my less than great performance at gym was my potential. Ha Ha

 

[Deleted member D3987]

i don't know about that. your parents would not have known what your gymnastics potential was cause they had nothing to compare it to as almost all parents. but what they could relate to was your aptitude for academics which are more self evident and tangible to a parent because of their own experience. so, pushing you may have backfired and you wouldn't be hear today to talk about it because you never would have put your child in gymnastics. God forbid, it might have been soccer...