Terrible coaching or not?

[sbutler]

My daughter has been doing backwalkovers while training for level 6 for a year or more. She has suddenly developed a fear. A big fear. The way her coaches are dealing with it is leaving her on the beam for hours, last night three hours, the whole practice. They would yell at her, humiliate her and when they were not doing that ignoring her. I am asking any coaches out there how they would handle this. Because their method is not working, if anything it has gotten worse. My daughter was the state AA champion last year at level 5. She has a great work ethic but her coaches have almost pushed her out of the gym. It is a shame really.

 

[gymmomntc2e6]

that method might work on some kids, obviously not yours. I would try talking to them about it, let them know it is having the opposite affect. If no change, I would look elsewhere & fast. no way to treat a kid.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

My daughter has been doing backwalkovers while training for level 6 for a year or more. She has suddenly developed a fear. A big fear. The way her coaches are dealing with it is leaving her on the beam for hours, last night three hours, the whole practice. They would yell at her, humiliate her and when they were not doing that ignoring her. I am asking any coaches out there how they would handle this. Because their method is not working, if anything it has gotten worse. My daughter was the state AA champion last year at level 5. She has a great work ethic but her coaches have almost pushed her out of the gym. It is a shame really.

dumb...dumber...dumbest...

 

[Bella's Mom]

Why are you allowing this to continue?????

No sport is worth that kind of emotional damage to my child and no coach would be allowed to humiliate my child. We have the option of going to another gym but even if we didn't, I would pull Bella out of the sport all together if the only gym around treated my child in such a way.

Yelling....that's such a vague "criticism". Bella's coach raises her voice but it's never with harsh or critical words. It's stuff like...."everyone needs to be POINTING THEIR TOES." Or during a floor routine, she might yell to be heard over the music. "BELLA, YOU'RE BEHIND THE MUSIC" (ongoing problem). To me, that's understandable yelling.

But name calling and humiliation....huh-eck no. Bye bye gym.

 

[bogwoppit]

Disgusting behaviour. Would you let your husband treat your DD like that? Would you let her teacher treat her like that? Would you let grandma treat her like that?

Why on earth are you letting that happen? The coach is a big bully and is publicly abusing your child.

A good coach would take her down to a line on the floor and work very slowly back up from there. The current abuse will only make her more fearful, plus she now sees that even her parents think this is okay.

Get her out of that coach's clutches.

 

[sbutler]

This is the only gym for a 100 miles. She loves this sport and is really good at it. But you are right I tried to talk to them last night about it. I don't know if I have made it better or worse, this week will tell and may be her last one.

 

[bogwoppit]

BY talking to them you have at least shown that you do not think this is okay. The problem is this kind of behaviour doesn't just stop. It is a coaching style that is allowed to continue because parents are desperate for their kids to do gym, or whatever sport.

 

[gym law mom]

My gymmie went through a similar experience at her 1st gym. They were trying to get the girls to do the bhs-bhs series. The coach would sit across the gym and the girls would be on the beams. He would tell them to "go" and whoever didn't(usually most of them) would get called all kinds of nasty names. This coach's philosophy was "to be mean to get them past their fears." Yeah, that made no sense. We did have an option and left as did many of the others. To this day, my gymmie will have moments where she doubts herself and says she can hear all this verbal abuse playing in her head.
Get her out if the coach won't clean up their act. They are also aware that there are the only gym around and feel they can treat the kids however they like. Even though she loves the sport and has done well, this kind of treatment will break her----its not worth it.

 

[gymdog]

Do not bring her back until this issue is resolved. If the coach doesn't resolve the issue to your satisfaction, leave and let the owner know they lost tuition because of the behavior of this coach. You can find another sport, dance or cheerleading. Unfortunately gymnastics is not worth this. That is terrible and imagine how it could play out as she progresses. Will she be left to crash on double backs with no supervision until she gets it? Not even physically safe, much less emotionally. You can't trust your child with people who behave this immaturely.

 

[Tumblequeensmom]

HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE coaching. This method is what pushed my DD almost completely out of gymnastics a few years ago! After a quick gym (no second thoughts there) and program change (she went Prep Op), a year later she was ready to jump back into JO with a passion again. It's a shame that it's the only gym around, but at least by talking to them, you've made them aware that you will not tolerate this verbally abusive behavior. If it continues this week, would get her out of there ASAP before they completely crush her. I'm sure w/her background, she could find another sport, dance, cheer, etc., where she would shine and not have to deal with the abuse.

 

[Billy]

My DD went through almost this exact same scenario when she was learning her BWO on beam. It was horrible and had lasting effects. To this day, she is still fearful of backward skills on beam and I blame her L5 coach, who terrified her and almost bullied her into quitting gymnastics altogether. She has already proven that coach wrong (that coach yelled at her in front of everyone, telling her she would never get past level 5) but those memories tend to linger.

 

[shelovestoflip]

You would not tolerate if her teacher had her sit at her desk for 3 hours until she learned to write (or read or multiply) so you should not tolerate a coach treating your child that way!!

If it's the only gym for 100 miles I would consider switching to dance (or cheer or figure skating or swimming), where she can be just as successful and happy to boot!

 

[Muddlethru]

This is the only gym for a 100 miles. She loves this sport and is really good at it. But you are right I tried to talk to them last night about it. I don't know if I have made it better or worse, this week will tell and may be her last one.

I feel for you. I too have very little choices of gyms. Sometimes we have to tolerate things that we normally would not becsuse of limited options. I would however, make every effort to change things around. It will not do your daughter any good if she begins to dislike the sport. Good luck to you. I hope things change at your daughter's gym.

 

[bookworm]

Get her out of there....emotional damage can be far greater and harder to overcome and it's just not worth it at her age and level.

 

[my4buffaloes]

I'm glad you talked to the coaches. Now sit there through every practice this week and make sure they don't do this again. If it starts at all, I would walk out with your child. Maybe not permanently. But straight to the owner and explain what is going on and that you are leaving until both the owner and coach can assure you that this behavior won't happen again. Unfortunately you will likely always have to be on top of this issue at this gym to ensure it doesn't happen again. I imagine with her being the level 5 state champ that they would really like to keep her and if they know you are willing to pull her from the sport entirely if this doesn't stop - they might just change their coaching style. So sorry you are dealing with this - it sounds horrible.

 

[ivyagogo]

I agree with everything that has been said. This happens all the time in gymnastics. They should just move her back to working on a line, then a low beam and slowly work her way back up to the high beam when she is comfortable. There is never a reason to treat a child like that.

 

[Turgidson]

This happened to one of our trampoline kids, a boy, who suddenly stopped being able to do a back tuck. My guess is that he had a growth spurt and suddenly, nothing felt right. He won trampoline at Fairland, and qualified for Nationals at the state meet. Then, he became convinced that he was going to go up and not rotate. We tried to get it back to working before regionals and it was pretty stressful. We tried the strategy of forcing the issue as these coaches are doing, hand spotting, going back a step to doing thousands of pullovers, and nothing worked. The kid ended up quitting. He might have worked it out if it had happened early in the season, and had the time to go back to basics. But then, competitions are scheduled at times not of our choosing.

Forcing the issue, and browbeating, seems to work better on boys than on girls. It did not work for us, nor did any of the other strategies we tried. If it is a growth thing, she might have to go back to scratch, and this is the time of the year to do that.

Paul

 

[emilee571]

Thats terrible! I had the same problem as your DD at my old gym. The coach would try to get us to learn a skill by being harsh. They would yell or call us names. It's emotional abuse. I would take her out of the gym or at least talk to the HC. No one should be treated like that. If she just loves the sport try to see if there is anyway to get her a different coach. Good luck!

 

[gymalex]

bad coaching

I coached at arguably the best gym in the U.S. for a few years. I can tell you that there was none of this. It sounds like your coaches are inexperience and misguided in coaching technique. The coach clearly doesn't know how to fix the problem, so he/she figures that yelling and bullying will make him/her look in control and in charge.
Whenever we had this sort of problem at my gym, the kid would back up. Line on the floor, floor beam, low beam with mats, etc. No, this fear thing didn't happen a lot (just the way the gym was), but when it did, there was no browbeating. It was simple. Go back to basics and work your way back up. No drama, no yelling. In fairness, if the child wasn't able to make progress in a reasonable amount of time, or if she would refuse to do the progressions, then a lot of times the kid would no longer be considered coachable and a decision would need to be made.
However, there was certainly a positive effort to help the athlete work through her fears.

I think the conversation you need to have with the coach would run along these lines:
You are bullying my child and it needs to stop immediately.
If you don't know how to help her overcome her fears, please just say so and we'll move on.
If you are no longer interested in coaching my child, just say so and we'll move on.
If the coach says that she DOES want to keep your daughter, your response could be:
I will assume that you believe what you are doing has been for the benefit of my child. However, she and I do not see it that way. Because I now know you want to help her, I will tell you what needs to happen if we are to stay at your gym. You will not yell at, bully, or belittle my child. You will help her with reasonable progressions, and give her time to work through the problem. If you get to a point where you are no longer interested in coaching her, please come to me and say so. In the meantime, I expect that she will be treated with kindness and respect.

And there you have it. I fully expect that your coach is frustrated and doesn't know how to fix the issue. In my experience, these are the coaches who bully and yell.

Good luck!

 

[bogwoppit]

Alex that is a great post and really says it all.