Parents No more CGMs

[John]

When parents actually get this crazy, I start to suspect the culture at the gym is to blame at least a little - it's like Suzy mom is more worried about Suzy vs. Sally than she is about Suzy's progress. That stuff usually doesn't develop unless the gym fosters an internally competitive training situation (always comparing and or ranking girls on the same team, etc.). My DD has only had 1 or 2 coaches (out of dozens) that did this crap, and it can be very defeating for the kids and cause certain parents to lose it.

Very insightful. I never thought of it from this point of view, but I see that is true.

 

[profmom]

It can be gym culture, but it can also be a few bad apples among the parents creating a lot of the trouble. We recently had departures of one CGM on each side (boys' and girls'), and I do think the culture in the gym has been healthier since. It's too small an N to generalize, but the departure of those parents changed things more than some coaching departures that one might have hypothesized would affect the culture.

A much more silly observation -- every time I see this thread title, I imagine it marketing something like a spray to ward off hornets. I have no idea why!

 

[Seeker]

We spent some time at a gym with some crazy CGM's and it really had nothing to do with the gym culture -- it was all them. They seemed to be like that with their non-gymnast children as well, so it just seemed to be a family/personality issue.

Was never so happy to get away from a group as I was when we left there....