Making friends in gym not going smoothly.

[Flossyduck]

Hi

My daughter switched gym a couple of months ago and we are really happy with the gym, she's making great progress, getting good feedback from the coaches and enjoying her gymnastics. Obviously some days are better than others, but really no worries there at all.

Getting along with the other girls in her squad is another matter and seems much more patchy and just over the last few days seems to have hit the rocks a bit.

I don't really understand the problem. Obviously I'm biased, but my daughter normally finds it really easy to make friends and ends up pretty popular in most situations - she's kind and generous and easy going, really caring. So I can't imagine her getting competative or funny with anyone. She was very keen to make friends.
Initially she would come out and talk with enthusiasm about having made friends with this girl or that girl, and they all waved and shouted hi to her for the first few weeks it was going great. But now she comes out and walks alone. She looks wary, they seem to give her funny looks and she said that one or two have been a bit mean. Last night she was a bit down and said she felt the others seemed to be trying to find ways to get her in to trouble.

I'm having to wonder if it's her? Surely all the others won't have just decided to cut her out for no reason, but I can't think what she could have done. Some of the things she has reported - falling out over hair bobbles and wearing the wrong shoes I thought would just blow over, but it seems not.

I know it's early days and to be honest it's bothering me more than her. I've tried not to let it worry me but I guess I expected it to get easier not harder and I hate to think she might be struggling with the social side.

So, how important is it that she makes friends? She says she's happy getting on with her gymnastics, but surely that's not realistic over time without the support of team mates?
How usual is it that things start ok and then get worse? Will it get better again? Is this normal?

Hopefully I'm worrying over nothing, but any advice about what I can say to help, or just reassurance for me would be great. Thanks.

 

[kimskids]

I'm sure it's hard to be the "new girl" at a new gym where everyone knows each other already. We recently switched gyms as well and although my daughter is happy where she is and says the girls are nice to her it is still not the same as the girls she was with for several years. Hopefully once she is there a while things will calm down. Maybe if there are a couple girls who seem nicer you could encourage a get together outside of gym? Hope things work out because of course you want your daughter to have friends somewhere she spends so much time!!

 

[ARKGYMMOM]

Hi

My daughter switched gym a couple of months ago and we are really happy with the gym, she's making great progress, getting good feedback from the coaches and enjoying her gymnastics. Obviously some days are better than others, but really no worries there at all.

If I had to guess this is the entire problem. Your daughter is making progress and the other girls are jealous. She has not had the distraction of friends latley and therefore she is more focused on the gymnastics aspect of things. They are noticing this too and are probably a bit jealous. Tell you daughter to keep working hard and they will fall in line. If not they will be the ones left behind

 

[Northstar2400]

Coming from the gymnast end of things. I was in this exact situation at my old gym. It was a fairly small gym and I started later than all the other girls so I never truly had a group to join. The girls I did talk with tended to be younger than the girls that were my age. It was hard not having any true teammates to cheer you on or to talk to, but I wouldn't have left my coach for the world! I didn't let it bother me because I knew what I was in the gym for and that was to practice. I had friends outside of the gym but none really in the gym.

 

[gymgal]

How old and what level are the girls? This will make a difference in how you handle it. A talk with the coaches may be in order to see if they are noticing anything different.

We have not needed to deal with this as we've always been at the same gym, but it wouldn't surprise me that things start off good (new girl - honeymoon period - all nice) and then the girls settle back to their old ways with cliques. Has your dd tried to actively pursue friends there? I know my dd would have a hard time doing this because she is very reserved and would never think of approaching established groups of girls. She would wait until invited. Makes it really hard to make friends quickly.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

 

[Flossyduck]

They are all 7, working on the UK elite pathway (UK level 5, not sure how that translates in to US levels?) and it's a small group, so not really any room for cliques or even for singling out one or two. We live some way from the gym (an hour) so with the hours they do it's not practical to socialise there really. It's the same for all of them actually. Gyms are far apart here!

I know my daughter is very conscientious and will work very hard and not muck about. That's just her nature but it might come across as a bit annoying? There are a couple of pretty talented girls who have done well already and a couple who have to work a bit harder but they're all good. So I'm not sure about jealousy as such, but yeh I guess the fact that she always works hard and tries to please the coach (and seems to be managing mostly) might do it!

I don't feel very comfortable bothering the coaches with personal girlie squabbly stuff and after reading your various thoughts I think she'll be ok. She's very determined and I don't think it will stop her, but gelling with the others would make it all a bit easier. Maybe she has been so intent on proving herself as a gymnast that she has relied on them to make all the moves. I guess it will happen, if it happens, over time.

Thanks for the encouragement. I can see good sense in all the comments and I think I just needed to hear it

(must work on shorter posts!)

 

[alx22]

My daughter is not a gymnast, but I was, and we do all-star cheer, so I bring her to gymnastic gyms on the side to help on technique, hate janky tumbling. Lately I have been looking for new ways to get "hollow" across to her and came across this site. But, anyway, she is 9 and was running into some trouble telling everyone else what they were doing wrong. Now, the coaches had put her up to it and told her she was the fixer and her corrections worked, but no one wanted to hear that from a kid. Also, I agree with jealousy thing, too, but maybe ask her if she's telling the other girls what they're doing wrong. I said just let the coach handle it and your life will be easier, you don't like anyone correcting you either, and she grinned.

 

[GymBee97]

At 7yo I really wouldn't worry about it unless your DD says something about it. She may be just so focused that she isn't really putting out the signals to get close. The question you have to ask yourself is does she say she is happy and is she getting the training you want. The the team support will come with competition. If its really bothering YOU then talk to the coach on your observations so they know and they can try to do some inclusion exercises but really for me if it were my DD I would be more interested in the gymnastics and coaching than any thing else.

 

[gymmomof1]

It's hard moving gyms and took my Dd awhile to find who she would fit with. Ask her to pick a girl similar to her in work ethic and see if she can pair up with that girl whenever possible. Hopefully a friendship will grow from there

 

[my4buffaloes]

My dd had a lot of trouble at our first gym. The other girls wouldn't talk to her, cut her in line, refused to let her sit with them at snack break, etc. it was frustrating and made dd very sad. We just talked to her about why she was there. Was she there to be friends with other girls who were clearly mean to her or was she there to do gymnastics. She was there for the gymnastics she said. So we told her to ignore it all and just do her thing. She was only 6 at the time.

I think it did shape her as a person and a gymnast. She is kind of a loner and is very focused on gymnastics while there. She is not there for the social aspect AT ALL. Over the years she has made good friends there and she gets along with everyone. BUT she is not there to goof off and play around, she is there for the gymnastics. it shows in her ability and her scores. She has plenty of friends and is nice to everyone (I am told this by many,many coaches, teachers, other adults, etc). She does not get sucked into the stupid games girls play like "you aren't part of our group because you have on the wrong shoes" type of stuff. and I am so glad!

Of course you want her to get along with everyone and have friends there but I think if she just does her thing and concentrates on gymnastics the rest will come with time.

 

[cbone]

It's so easy to get oversensitive as parents. My daughter's best gym friend wouldn't talk to my daughter and ran away from her at the end of year banquet. I talked to my wife about it and was bummed for my daughter (though she just spent the night getting piggy back rides from older teammates). We were baffled about what happened that her friend wouldn't talk to her. Come Monday, they're chatting and hugging like nothing happened. As long as our kids are getting what they need out of gym (social aspects, high achievement, exercise, etc.) it will all be okay in the long run. We just torture ourselves in the interim.

 

[monkeysmom]

I would not jump to the conclusion that others are jealous. That is thrown out there way too often in situations where it is not true or the crux of the problem. A very serious and focused 7 year old could easily be misperceived by her peers as being over competitive and unfriendly. Most 7 years olds (as they should be) are about having fun, making friends, and growing their amazing imaginations. Over time if they support each other and are there for each other, hopefully they'll understand each other more, support each other, and develop trust. Since it's highly unlikely any of them (even on the elite track at the tender age of 7) are headed for the Olympics, those are the most valuable life lessons they are learning, not the kip or the tuck or whatever... My daughter is really bright and also can be a little bossy, and I try to guide her to be kind, stand up to bullies etc. Seems like the same truth holds for 7 year olds or 17 or 37 or 77--the best way to find a friend is to be a friend. Human nature seems to be that people aren't really the most attracted to you by what you do, but rather how you respond to what they do.... Off the soap box now.

 

[monkeysmom]

PS, if you want to be subtle about it, read her The Popcorn Dragon. It's the first book they read to kids who are starting in the "gifted program" at my daughter's school. She came home all excited about this book they read, and I just smiled to myself when I realized what the message was.

 

[Flossyduck]

Thanks for the comments. I think I just need to stop worrying. In fact I'm sure I advised someone else on here that kids come out tired and seem upset and we worry about it all night only to find it's all fine the next day. How easy it is to be objective when it's not your own child... I need to remember my own advice!

Tonight within five minutes of arriving she was running around with the girl she thought had been mean on Monday and when she left she was giggling with one of the others. Like I said it's a bit patchy...

monkeysmom, it wasn't me that said the others might be jealous and in fact my comment was that there are some talented girls and they are all good so I didn't think it was likely to be jealousy. I feel as though you have made some assumptions that my daughter is a show off, which is wide of the mark and I'm sorry if that is not how it was intended or if that's the impression I gave.

She does take her gymnastics very seriously, she's passionate about it. She is conscientious by nature about everything she does, and she likes to please and make people happy. She is almost certainly trying to make a good impression and will feel under pressure to do that but she's definitely not a show off.

The squabbles seem to be over really silly things like the fact that she forgot her trainers one time and had to run in sandals and they poked fun. Seven year old stuff I guess but it hurt and she's not used to it and has become a bit more wary.

She is loving the gym, never says she doesn't want to go, happy with how she's improving and the new things she can do. She has lovely friends outside of gym, boys and girls of mixed ages and she's a happy little girl. So I just need to let her find her own way with the girls and trust her to know what she's doing. It's so easy to say....