Parents Immature 6 year old

[JennyJones]

My DD is a great gymnast, but a bit "young" for her age as I like to say. It has definitely gotten better as she's gotten older and I think it's actually the gymnastics that has helped her focus more in all aspects of her life. Just stay the course...they do mature eventually. There's truly no rush...she can compete when the time is right.

 

[ZZMom]

Just before my dd turned five, I moved her from her "fun" gym to a more serious gym. This was a huge mistake and I made it because I thought that she was small, strong, flexible and loved gymnastics. What could go wrong? Everything. The expectations of maturity from a five year old were much too high and ended with ZZ shutting down and with the gym asking me if there was "something wrong with her." I took her out of gymnastics for six months and then took her back to her fun gym where she was happy and once again loved gymnastics and her coaches. My original mistake was in not paying attention to the clear signals my daughter was sending. She was clearly uncomfortable with the new gym and I failed to pay attention.

We moved to a new city in January and my first criteria for a gym for her was that the atmosphere be positive and that ZZ love it. She turned six in November and has matured a lot in the past year. She listens to corrections and doesn't think that the coach is mad at her when they give them. She is learning but still needs a coach who will pick her up and tickle her and let her know that they see her as a person.

I guess the moral of this story is that I've learned to pay attention to how my daughter feels. It may be that your dd will just want to move slowly along with her rec class and private lesson for the time being until she is ready to commit more focus to serious gymnastics. I don't think it means at all that she isn't cut out for competitive gymnastics. I definitely agree with Dunno that there are a LOT of different personalities and levels of maturity on any gymnastics team. So be very wary of a coach / gym situation that doesn't accept these differences. I'm not a fan of the gymnast as a machine mode of thinking.

Best Wishes,

ZZ Mom

 

[ejgymmom]

It's good to find out that my 6 year old isn't the only one with focus issues. My daughter is on pre-team and is the youngest in her group. There is one other 6 year old a few months older and then the next youngest is almost a year and a half older. My kid is the one who is always jumping around, can't stand still, gets out of line, misses her turn, does cartwheels when she should be listening to what she should be doing. It's frustrating to watch.

Her coach recently split her large group into two smaller groups (7-8 kids each, 2 coaches). She put Anna in the group she's pushing to go to Level 4 this summer but told me that if Anna can't start focusing better and making the corrections her coaches tell her to that she would bump her down to the other group. Again, it's frustrating because she picks up skills pretty quick (though she's definitely not graceful about it a lot) and she wants so bad to go to Level 4. This is her 2nd year on pre-team. For her it's just the mental part of it all, the focus. She has gotten better over the past year so I just have to hope that she continues to mature. We do also reward good behavior and focus in class (not for skills...just when she has a good day listening and focusing), and in other areas of her life as well...not just gymnastics..and that seems to help a little. Anyway, it's comforting to hear about other kids finding their focus after a year or so. We'll keep waiting it out.