Parents "inability to get skills" - questions about this

[BusyMomof2]

A recent thread mentions that the inability to get skills can be a reason girls quit. Makes sense, though I have not really thought about this before. How common is this - that a girl wants to keep going but can't because she's reached a plateau?

Are there certain skills that tend to be the most quit-worthy?

My daughter off-handedly mentioned last night that she doesn't think she'll get a standing back tuck on beam, ever. I have no idea if that's true and she can be hard on herself, but that comment got me thinking!

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

This often coincides with the tween/teen growth spurt. Progress stalls, skills they already had get harder, and they just generally feel less successful than they're used to. In addition, this is also an age where they tend to want to do other things with their time.

 

[HurricaneLR]

There have been a bunch of skills that my daughter thought she would never get, but sure enough, a year later, they are easy as pie. I think it's pretty normal to have those thoughts - and then once you get that skill, you have those same thoughts about a new one!

As to quitting, I think it's such an individual thing- some girls get frustrated when they can't master new skills as quickly, and some are fine with taking a little longer. There aren't too many true gatekeeper skills on the Xcel side - there are usually alternatives. I do know some girls who quit because they could never master a kip, which meant they couldn't really advance levels. One the other hand, we have a family friend that competed platinum for maybe 5 or 6 years because of a medical condition that didn't allow her to do certain skills beyond that level. She competed platinum until she graduated high school!