I think normal is how you interpret it. I feel my children are having a normal childhood. Yes, spending 3 nights a week (or 5 days in the summer) at the gym for a 7 year old and 2 days for a 4 year old may be considered a lot, but its really not that different than kids who play baseball or any other sport. For some reason gymnastics gets a bad rap, but baseball teams practice outside in the heat all spring and summer and sometimes play double-headers which leads to all day long at the field. Football players have 2-a-day practices in the summer to condition and practice 5 days a week in the fall. Swim team practices every day in the summer. I can keep going but I think you get the picture. Probably because other sports are a clearly defined season and gymnastics is year-round, people think what our kids do is crazy. My kids still do the "normal" things like take swimming lessons and play outside in the back yard. We go to the library and to the park and out for ice cream. They still have plenty of free time for play and relaxation. My kids love to hang out and read books or watch movies.
If anything, I think gymnastics is teaching my kids great time management skills. They go (or will go in my son's case) to a school that has homework every single day for every single grade (even last night, which I thought was crazy since today is the last day of school, but that's a whole 'nother story) and my daughter has had to learn how to get her homework done quickly so she can get to practice. She has seen that the other parents on our team value education as much as her parents do, when other parents or her coaches have corrected her homework if we weren't immediately available to while at the gym. She will learn as she gets older how to break big projects into steps because she won't be able to get it all done in one night before practice. These are all valuable lessons for a child to learn.
^^^What 3stars said! I'm still relatively new (I'm only a 1 year old gym mom), but I still just don't get it and I am constantly trying to compare it to my ds's activities and determine why gym gets such a bad rap. Maybe I'm naive and delusional (dd is still only L4 and yes, she's still doing minimal hours in the gym and that will increase if she decides to stay with it) and I will understand when/if she's ever an optional, but it seems to me that some things just have to be prioritized just like with any other activity to which a person makes a commitment.
However, I'll go even further with 3stars' baseball analogy using my ds's. They practice and play spring/summer and fall seasons, and practice only indoors during the winter months. The main season runs January (practice starts, games start approx late Feb/early March)through late July, sometimes August, with a short break then they play a lighter season late August/early Sept through November until they're forced to only practice indoors for a couple of months until they can get outside again. Organized practices aren't every day, but by the time you add up organized practices, private hitting/fielding/pitching lessons, long toss to keep the arm strong, bullpen, strength/conditioning, they are doing something baseball related everyday. And they play 2-3 weekends a month, with a minimum of 3 games per weekend, sometimes as many as 5 or 6 if they win--and that's not including league games during the week. I realize the wear and tear on the body does not compare to gym, I intend the comparison only from a time standpoint. If I were to guesstimate, I'd say both of my sons spend approximately 7-8 hours a week practicing and anywhere from 9-20 hours per week playing games for probably 46 weeks a year. So if we're talking about time commitment that requires the athlete to give up being a "normal" kid, then none of my kids are "normal" and neither was I nor my husband!
My boys have missed out on birthday parties, vacations, watching the average 40 hours of tv per week...but as teenagers now, there is no way they'd trade it for anything. By this age, if they didn't want to do it, believe me, they wouldn't. Normal is what you make it. Some people think we're crazy and think our kids are "missing out." I grew up this way myself and the ONLY regret I had about my childhood was that we didn't take regular family vacations. This is something that I make sure we do every once in a while, even if it's a 3 day weekend, just so they don't miss out on that, too.
Bottom line, I try to make sure anyone who gasps at the statement that my dd is a competitive gymnast understands that 1) it's her choice to be there, 2) she loves it, and 3) in comparison (if you take the injury piece out), it's not all that different from what we do in other sports. There are those, however, who think we're crazy for playing so much baseball, so I guess that's another story...
). So, when my DD says she's going to make it all the way to the big "O", I never dash her hopes. I just keep telling her to have fun and work hard, in the gym, at school and at life.
! It is a unique benefit to living this "not normal"
lifestyle. They learn the art of leaning on one another & supporting each other!!! Through mental blocks, fears, injuries, wins & losses! Even family issues such as a parent passing away
. Yes, sometimes DD's gym feels like "The Rock" all it's drama
