Parents Life after Team?

[GymMomStarQuest29]

Hey there,

We are officially quitting team. I thought I’d be thrilled but I am a basketcase lol! I explained to my daughter (9) that my tears are different. They’re pretty much happy-growing-up tears. But I had a gym question.

She wants to take a year off. She wants a break from competitions, and less hours of practice. She doesn’t want to do rec because it is an hour a week and not necessarily going to help her with the skills she has, like they don’t do yeurchenkos in rec. She doesnt want to lose the skills she has, but she also just needs a big Break from the long hours and pressure. (Her schedule this summer was Monday-Friday, 20+ hours.)

Is there a happy medium? I told her that I’d pay for private lessons for the year so she could do gymnastics, it’s cheaper than team lol. But she wants like, 7-8 hours a week. I’m trying to brainstorm but nothing is coming to mind.

Has anyone else had this experience? Additionally I’d love to hear from anyone who had a kid quit for a year and come back. Is that possible? Because my daughter is in this line of thinking like, take a year off and then come back to team. Does that happen?

 

[Coach Kate]

I definitely know of people who came back after a year, or even two, off, maybe at a lower level, but they made their way back.

I had a teammate once who got so stressed about competing that she just took the season off from that. She worked out with our team just one day a week and then the next year, she was ready to jump back in. I don't know if that would be an option for your daughter as well.

Without knowing your gym, it's hard to guess what the options might be. At the gym I work at, our highest level team coach also coaches an advanced rec class and is really good about tailoring the class to each athlete's needs. Does your daughter's gym have any open gyms? That might also be another way for her to stay lightly involved. You could also look at open gyms at other gyms nearby as well.

I guess I would have this conversation with your daughter's coach (es) because they're the ones who are going to be able to tell you what they might be willing to do for her.

 

[Tammie]

Oh goodness, I'm both happy and sad for you, I know you were on the fence with things.

Ok, I see several options
1)xcel??
2)privates with open gym time to practice what she is learning??
3)maybe like Coach Kate has said, doing less with her same team and just not compete??

As for time off and coming back, my kiddo took almost 2yrs off due to a move from heck meets covid...and keep in mind that mine did next to NOTHING gymnastics related during her time off. She is now back and on an elite path, with a top gym no less. In some ways I think being completely off actually helped her(it did no favors for her gymnastics, obviously), while she had to restart her levels and is working hard to catch up, she also doesn't want to quit like many kiddos her age, its not even a thought in her head, she remembers life without gymnastics and did not enjoy that at all!! She is now 10-1/2 and most weeks is in the gym 30-32hrs(&wants more).

My question for you....was she expressing that it was too much before now?? Or is this the first you are hearing about it?(maybe chat with her about recognizing/how to recognize and letting you know before she burns herself out....just a suggestion, so you can get more out of this than knowing how to do some cool tricks ;-))

Would the team hours stay at 20 during the school year or was that just for the summer??(like maybe if the team is doing 12hrs during the school year, she may want to try it, even if she didn't compete, I know it is more than the 7-8 she feels is ideal, but not by that much and maybe somehow you can work with it, either by not going all days or by trying it to see how it feels, knowing she can stop any time if its still too much)

Or maybe even go the route of trying something TOTALLY different that would still utilize her skills(so she doesn't loose strength & wouldnt have an issue going back if she wanted), maybe dance? Diving? Track? Even swimming would utilize and keep up her strength and endurance training.

Good luck!!

 

[Tammie]

P.S. I also didn't like your gym...and wonder if that is part of DDs problem. Maybe she wouldn't feel the same way at a different gym, good/bad coaches can make all the difference in the world and change how we feel about the sport!!

 

[Aussie_coach]

Look around at different gyms. Our gymnasts do Yurchenkos in rec if they are of that level. We have great gymnasts in red for various reasons, mainly due to not being able to commit to the higher HIURS, and just because they are in rec it does not mean that they can’t hit higher levels.

Our too rec kids are doing Yurchenkos on vault, double twists on floor etc. We do omit certain skills, if we feel they aren’t suitable for the number of hours they are doing.

But you won’t get it on 1 hour a week. 3 hours x 2-3 times a week works, if they have the skill and talent. With rec kids we can often progress more in less time than a comp kid because we don’t have to worry about learning or practising routines, we don’t have to spend hours perfecting leaps etc.

Surely there are other gyms out here with similar options.

 

[Caesarea]

A nine-year old gymnast who is Level 5/6 and doing 20+ hours per week is excessive. This sounds like a gym/philosophy problem. I have several options:

1) Continue on team, train less hours and do not compete this season.
2) Find an advanced recreational or performance squad (these, unfortunately, are rare in the U.S. But if you're in Canada or the UK, you might have some options)
3) Switch to a lower-intensity competitive program such as Xcel.
4) Switch to a different gym discipline. T&T, or TeamGym, sound like good fits for her.
5) Find a better gym that trains only 12-16 hours for DP Level 5/6, and does NOT have a mandatory cross-country travel meet.

 

[MuggleMom]

Back in the day when I did gym they had what I think they called a Junior/Senior group that was like advanced rec for former team girls and I think it was maybe 4 hours a week. It was almost like open gym you did rotations to all events but you got to work on what you wanted to work on with a coach to guide and spot as needed. I wish they had more advanced type rec classes like this.

 

[Miles_leaf]

Heyyyy, so have you thought about supplementing with some other sport? When I was her age, I was in our rock climbing gym twenty hours a week. (Still love climbing, but our gym is down now, in case you cared) just a thought. Oh and I found that having no one to compete with, no pressure of competition, and the fun of progressing a route over weeks until I’d finally get it, was generally healthy. Plus, most sports might contemplate her gymnastics when she does go back. Or you could just go to all the gyms in your area and ask them if they have some sort of program that meets all your wants and needs. Please, don’t feel pressured to try another sport, you might love it, and never come back, and I’ll get blamed lol

 

[GymMomStarQuest29]

Thank you to everyone for your support and suggestions. I’ve been staying off social media a bit more as school starts and we adjust to this new non-gymnastics lifestyle. I thought I’d give an update for anyone following this thread.

I officially sent the email to the owner/head coach. I explained that she is taking time off because she’s feeling burned out but would like to sign up for rec and take private lessons to keep learning new skills, if possible. I also expressed our gratitude to the coach and the team for all they’ve done for her. I received a message back the following day, the response was cold. It basically said, We will miss her. You still have to pay for the warm ups that were already ordered. ($250 that I’d paid 3 weeks earlier.) There was nothing else in the email. It honestly broke my heart. That weekend my daughter went to a bday party for a team girl and this head coach was there. She was super friendly and talked to my daughter about rec and told her she could do rec. She said to my dtr “I think it’s full but we could squeeze her in.” Fast forward to when I try to sign her up. There it’s a wait list online. So I emailed the coach and asked how I sign her up. Her response was “we will get her in when we can.” That’s it. So, fine whatever. We will find other things to do. And then another mom let me know that there have been discussions and apparently the girls who quit aren’t welcome back to rec or anything else.

My heart breaks bc my daughter thought these people were her second family and her second supper circle. She spent so much time there, put so much into it…just to know (to really KNOW bc I already knew) that she’s just a number to them, just a monthly check, and they don’t care at all…I haven’t shared any of that with her. It proves to me that she made the right choice to leave, and I honestly don’t think she’s looking back.

I’m over it. The hard thing is that she wants to see her friends and they’re still spending 20 hours in the gym where she isn’t apparently not going to be able to sign up for rec or participate otherwise. But we will find time for friends.

I found a nearby ninja gym that has open gym sessions, and I told her I’d take her to the rock climbing gym as well. I’ve looked into hip hop dance lessons and voice lessons, though I’m struggling to commit her to them and she seems to be struggling to commit to anything, as well. So who knows what will come next. (And that’s okay.) For now we are focused on family and school and just enjoying time at home and thinking about what adventures come next.

Thank you all of you who have been so helpful, supportive and caring about our family.

 

[raenndrops]

Hey there,

We are officially quitting team. I thought I’d be thrilled but I am a basketcase lol! I explained to my daughter (9) that my tears are different. They’re pretty much happy-growing-up tears. But I had a gym question.

She wants to take a year off. She wants a break from competitions, and less hours of practice. She doesn’t want to do rec because it is an hour a week and not necessarily going to help her with the skills she has, like they don’t do yeurchenkos in rec. She doesnt want to lose the skills she has, but she also just needs a big Break from the long hours and pressure. (Her schedule this summer was Monday-Friday, 20+ hours.)

Is there a happy medium? I told her that I’d pay for private lessons for the year so she could do gymnastics, it’s cheaper than team lol. But she wants like, 7-8 hours a week. I’m trying to brainstorm but nothing is coming to mind.

Has anyone else had this experience? Additionally I’d love to hear from anyone who had a kid quit for a year and come back. Is that possible? Because my daughter is in this line of thinking like, take a year off and then come back to team. Does that happen?

My OG quit when she was 10. She quit in early September. She turned 11 on her break. She came back toward the end of November. She competed again starting that January. She also competed the following year.
After that, there was drama (not related to gym at all). She was out for the next 2 years. When she came back, she moved up a level and managed to get 9+ on 3 events. More drama led to her and her sister having to miss Y Nationals (and me eating the money I paid out for the meet). After that, she retired for good.

YG quit for the first time in the 2nd year of the drama that took OG out, but she only missed 1 season. She had a great season on her return. All of her personal event high scores (not counting Beam) went up. Bars went up by 0.200, Floor went up 1.000, Vault went up 0.500, and Personal best AA went up by 2.000.