P
Pickle's Mom
It’s clear you and your husband have the best interests of your daughter and your entire family at heart, but I encourage you to rethink how you are attempting to motivate her. Two things come to mind:
1. Everything you are doing is a “stick†and not a “carrotâ€. This is incredibly de-motivational for kids this age. Instead of thinking “if I do something well I get a reward†they just worry about the punishment of not succeeding.
2. Scores are an often abstract concept to work towards. A 9.x doesn’t come from thin air. It comes from achieving specific skills. Rather than motivating her towards scores, think about ways to reward for achieving specific skills (or better form on skills she already has).
I admit that I have occasionally rewarded (cough – bribed – cough) Pickle when I thought it would help her. Usually it’s when she’s dealing with fears or frustrations. For example, over the summer she was saving up for a kind of pricey astronomy book and at the same time she had lost of BWO on beam. I told her I would buy the book for her if she did 5 BWOs in a row on the high beam without balking. It took her 4 workouts to get it. I knew she was capable of this. She was just letting her fears get to her. Having a specific, tangible, achievable goal to work towards with a reward at the end helped her to get past it.
Most recently I promised her that if she did her full L6 bar routine connecting all skills and casting above horizontal on all casts, I would make her bed for her for a week.
Guess how long it took for her to get it?
1. Everything you are doing is a “stick†and not a “carrotâ€. This is incredibly de-motivational for kids this age. Instead of thinking “if I do something well I get a reward†they just worry about the punishment of not succeeding.
2. Scores are an often abstract concept to work towards. A 9.x doesn’t come from thin air. It comes from achieving specific skills. Rather than motivating her towards scores, think about ways to reward for achieving specific skills (or better form on skills she already has).
I admit that I have occasionally rewarded (cough – bribed – cough) Pickle when I thought it would help her. Usually it’s when she’s dealing with fears or frustrations. For example, over the summer she was saving up for a kind of pricey astronomy book and at the same time she had lost of BWO on beam. I told her I would buy the book for her if she did 5 BWOs in a row on the high beam without balking. It took her 4 workouts to get it. I knew she was capable of this. She was just letting her fears get to her. Having a specific, tangible, achievable goal to work towards with a reward at the end helped her to get past it.
Most recently I promised her that if she did her full L6 bar routine connecting all skills and casting above horizontal on all casts, I would make her bed for her for a week.
Guess how long it took for her to get it?