WAG What intangibles could hold a child back?

[sevenatenine2]

I don't know, I've seen plenty of gyms that would hold a girl back at Level 6 if she were the only one in the group ready for 7 yet not a fast tracked hot shot.

And realistically, gymnastics can be VERY important to your family yet not important enough to home school or move because.

I think the OP came on really strong and a lot of people kind of jumped on her because she sounded a little crazy. I do understand the point, though. The answer of how to best handle it isn't an easy one.

 

[gracyomalley]

She had a BWO on beam nailed a couple of weeks after starting work on it in January. She was allowed to start working the BHS after demonstrating her mastery of the BWO. How this happened, I have no idea, since that was the first time any uptraining had been done. A couple of other girls just happened to "have" the switch leap on floor, and they competed that as well. But they weren't all systematically trained for that. I firmly believe that the only reason she was allowed to compete the BHS was because one of the coaches left. She had a BT for years but wasn't allowed to work them in practice, ever. She spent a year dying to "get" her FT - they almost never let her try in practice. They also haven't touched any sort of drill for layouts, they are all completely still on strap bar for giants.

If the gym doesn't want to make ANY promises, that's fine. But the gym IS making promises to other groups. That are not phenoms. That have less time to train. That have a larger leap in skills. Why?

I feel like I am being jumped on for the tiniest details here. Maybe that's why I'm feeling defensive.

If they are doing strap bar giants they have been "up training". Not uptraining would mean they hadn't even done that. That's what my DD old gym was like for bars (although good with basic drills...but no skills until at the level). And for any girls to compete the switch leap at L5 they must have had a chance to work them enough for the coaches to know they could do them....it may be that your expectations are pretty high - which is FINE but may mean that you need to look at other programs realistically....there are certainly (based upon what I hear here) some gyms that compete down to train up, or whatever you wish to describe the L4 kid who already has her L7 skills....but THAT's rare in most areas.

I'm happy my kids are now at a gym that trains the next level skills (and occ more) part time throughout the year, and emphasizes competing at the level a kid can feel confident at, whatever that is, rather than having the level be the end all be all - which for my kids has meant repeating sometimes, and skipping whole levels plus others....

Last comment would be that there were countless signals over DD last 18 months at her old gym that things were "not right" there - and I ignored them because DD was a favorite so I assumed she was getting what she needed - and she was winning, moving up, etc....in retrospect the signals that I ignored were accurate and she was not getting what she needed, nor were the other kids. I know you felt this gym was your only choice - I would either make peace with that (at least for now) and make the best of it, or re-examine it as you do seem to be at least a bit distrustful of the coaches - which is more telling that what level, etc your DD is at.

Good luck!

 

[gymdilettante]

I think people are being a little hard on op. She said in another thread that her daughter's goal is college gym and that she is on the older side. We argue about whether it is an attainable goal but the fact is that she needs to get 10 quickly if she wants to do college. We know she was told her daughter would be competing 6 this season and then at the last minute she had to compete 5 instead even though the reason wasn't that her daughter wasn't ready for 6. Assuming op told the gym about her daughter's goals, I can understand her being frustrated about unexplained delays (it would be one thing if they told her that her daughter was lacking in skills/strength/attitude/whatever and so they felt 6 in 2016 would therefore be appropriate for her but if op's appraisal of her daughter is correct, it just appears that they're making her goal less attainable for no apparent reason). Now there is probably more to the story than that - maybe it is an issue of wanting to keep the team together or not having one kid at a level - but I'm saying simply from the perspective of op, I can understand the frustration even if I don't think it is productive. But, op, I think once things have cooled down, you should come read this thread again because there are many posts that I think would shift your perspective. Good luck and keep us informed!

 

[Iwannabemargo]

Whilst I totally understand the OP's frustration there are some facts which need to be understood.

- the gym is a business, who's goal is the survival, profitability and flourishing of that business - it does now "care" per se about and individual child, but the welfare of the business.

- The parent cares about the individual child, not the business and is only invested with their offspring's success.

This dichotomy leads to a tension that is always there and is, I think, the cause of may complaints on this forum.

Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done from the parent's point of view as the gym is in the position of power in the relationship and will not change their ethos.


Now I understand that this is a simplistic view and that 99.9% of gyms take a caring approach to their students etc, but their ultimate motivation is the business, not any one individual, it has to be to survive.

So as a customer we can choose to purchase the product or not, we cannot expect to mould the product to our particular needs.

Sometimes it hurts, we build long term relationships with the people, however we must not confuse the people with the product.

 

[OzZee]

My issue with this thread is the OP asked for reasons why a child might be 'held back' in level 6 and not skip a level.
Lots of people took the time to reply with reasons they though could be a reason.
OP took these as a personal critique of her child that no one here knows.
There was a lot of 'shouting' back at those that posted.

Levels are just a number. These kids do the sport because they love gymnastics, if she is happy and loving it no problem. if she is feeling bored, disheartened, like her coaches don't like her then that is a different story.
OP may be frustrated by communication at the gym but no need to take it out on people here who are trying to be helpful.

 

[2G1B]

I agree with OzZee. The initial post was a hypothetical. Most of us here do not know her dd's gym history. Even if we had read posts before, it is unlikely that we all remembered the back story. I know I didn't. But the OP asked for hypotheticals. They were offered. The OP took offense to them. That is when I said she might be part of the problem if she acted at the gym as she had here. She totally went off on people for no real reason.

 

[twinmomma]

My issue with this thread is the OP asked for reasons why a child might be 'held back' in level 6 and not skip a level.
Lots of people took the time to reply with reasons they though could be a reason.
OP took these as a personal critique of her child that no one here knows.
There was a lot of 'shouting' back at those that posted.

Levels are just a number. These kids do the sport because they love gymnastics, if she is happy and loving it no problem. if she is feeling bored, disheartened, like her coaches don't like her then that is a different story.
OP may be frustrated by communication at the gym but no need to take it out on people here who are trying to be helpful.

This.

 

[munchkin3]

Wow, this whole thread is crazy.