Parents What life lessons does your child miss because of gymnastics?

[gymgal]

I’m curious what chores people give their kids. Especially those that leave home by 7 am and don’t return home until after 8 or 9. I know our priority list is : eat, homework, shower and get your stuff packed and ready for the next day (lunch made, way to gym snack together, Leo, water bottle and backpack ready). Outside of that, it’s getting to bed as soon as possible. She does have a heavy school load with 4 of her 6 classes being Honors level or higher.

Each of my kids are responsible for doing their own laundry/sheets (washing/drying/putting away), keeping their rooms clean (debatable, but dusting, vacuuming, etc), and there are three sets of chores that get rotated each month. Each set has 1-2 daily chores (like cat boxes, cleaning up dinner/dishes, etc) and a larger weekly chore (ex. full bathroom cleaning). And other chores are based on timing - first person downstairs/last person to bed feeds the cats, etc. We have teens so often times, that's them in both regards, not the parents.

 

[Nikki4]

Maybe things are different in different areas. My DD has to chose to miss gym if she wants to go to football games. The games start an hour to an hour and half before she gets back into town from practice. All school sponsored clubs have their meetings right after school, she has practice. In middle school, all “dances” (they were more like lock-ins or sock hops than an actual dance) were on Fridays were during her practice hours. Her latest sacrifice was realizing a trip to Spain her Spanish teacher is organizing is going to take place right before/during regionals. I can’t see any activity that takes up so much time doesn’t have some impact on daily life. It’s one of the reasons girls quit around middle school and in high school. As far as chores, my daughter is responsible for her room. I don’t clean it and I don’t put anything away. (Including her laundry). The things I call chores that I feel she misses out on are the daily things that must be done each day that I don’t enjoy- like cooking. I’m not a cook, I hate cooking dinner but we have to eat. She’s not here to help. She’s not here to help clean up the dinner mess. She is responsible for packing her lunch for the next day and putting her own dishes away. She’s not here to walk or feed our dog. Those are the chores I’m referring to and I’m curious how others say their kids are still doing these things. Is their time at gym just at way different times than mine? I do know when we are on summer gym schedule, she is home for dinner each night and is expected to help the family but that’s 8 weeks out of the year. (And this year she was gone 4 of those 8 on family vacations, visiting her grandparents and camp).

Girls at our gym miss fir things like

Maybe things are different in different areas. My DD has to chose to miss gym if she wants to go to football games. The games start an hour to an hour and half before she gets back into town from practice. All school sponsored clubs have their meetings right after school, she has practice. In middle school, all “dances” (they were more like lock-ins or sock hops than an actual dance) were on Fridays were during her practice hours. Her latest sacrifice was realizing a trip to Spain her Spanish teacher is organizing is going to take place right before/during regionals. I can’t see any activity that takes up so much time doesn’t have some impact on daily life. It’s one of the reasons girls quit around middle school and in high school. As far as chores, my daughter is responsible for her room. I don’t clean it and I don’t put anything away. (Including her laundry). The things I call chores that I feel she misses out on are the daily things that must be done each day that I don’t enjoy- like cooking. I’m not a cook, I hate cooking dinner but we have to eat. She’s not here to help. She’s not here to help clean up the dinner mess. She is responsible for packing her lunch for the next day and putting her own dishes away. She’s not here to walk or feed our dog. Those are the chores I’m referring to and I’m curious how others say their kids are still doing these things. Is their time at gym just at way different times than mine? I do know when we are on summer gym schedule, she is home for dinner each night and is expected to help the family but that’s 8 weeks out of the year. (And this year she was gone 4 of those 8 on family vacations, visiting her grandparents and camp).

Most high school girls at our gym do a 2-6 practice. But even so, my daughter is just getting to the going to dances age and I would have no problem letting her miss practice to go if she wanted to. I mean their only a few times a year. Unless of course during meet season and she would not want to go. She does homeschool now and gym in the morning and a couple of days in the afternoon but she’s been in public school before and we’ve still done things the same way.
My kids partly do their own laundry including the gymnast. They start their laundry during their morning routine before leaving. Everybody has a designated laundry day. I dry it and fold it during the day and they put it up that evening. They also make their beds in the morning and clean off their bathroom sinks. We have 4 “dinner jobs” we rotate each week between them. Unloading and loading the dishwasher, taking care of the pets, taking out the garbage and recycling, and cleaning up the living room. This gets done after dinner all while we juggle 4 different practice schedules.
They all have a “Saturday job”. My oldest has his own bathroom so he cleans that, the other rotate their bathroom cleaning jobs.
Everybody has a dry erase board on their door with all this stuff written down

We just work around it all and make it work

 

[Nikki4]

And sometimes it doesn’t get done. If I know one of them is mentally done for the day or just swamped with school I’ll help them out with their responsibilities or a sibling helps out that day with their job.

 

[Madden3]

My kids have missed being regularly bored and learning to deal with it. I am not joking, I believe boredom (and the independent, creative action boredom spurs) are very important. Lack of boredom also means they rely less on their siblings for companionship, which I am genuinely sorry about. Of course, they also fight a lot less than my siblings and I did. But fighting and learning to live with/rely on others is also an important life lesson.

I also believe true downtime- time for nothing but daydreaming- is important. it And my kids get much less of that due to daily sports practice (not just gymnastics) - plus school.

Of course these days with so much screen media, lots of kids are missing out on the benefits of experiencing boredom and true downtime. But our family has little media and what we have we restrict, so in our case it is the sports plus school that takes the time from these things.

Chore ideas:
My kids have "big" weekly chore jobs (so, they do them on the weekend, usually.) These are dusting and vacuuming whole house (one kid) and cleaning our 2 bathrooms (other kid). My 7 year old usually loves to help with whatever and keeps her room neat without prompting, so at this point she does not have weekly chores. Daily expectations for all are quick and easy things like setting/clearing table, packing/unpacking their own lunch, rinsing stuff and putting it in the dishwasher, light dishwashing as needed. But the way their practices are, even my gymnast son only has one day of the week where he is not home at least a short time between school and gym. If they were gone all day early am to bedtime, I would not make them do daily chores. While they COULD get up early or stay up late to do things, maximising sleep time is in my opinion more important.

 

[Aussie_coach]

Gymnastmom05, you have piqued my curiosity. What is a sock hop? And what is a lock in? Both terms I have never heard before.

 

[gymnastmom05]

Gymnastmom05, you have piqued my curiosity. What is a sock hop? And what is a lock in? Both terms I have never heard before.

Ha - it's basically a school function (some called it a lock-in because the kids couldn't leave) at the school with music, dancing, games. Just a fun night and a fun place to hang out, supervised, with your classmates. They were only in middle school. Where my daughter goes they called them a "dance" BUT they were essentially the same and held once a month. Therefore, they weren't these big productions like Homecoming or Prom. Heck, depending on what they wanted to do, a large number wore athletic clothes so they could play basketball or dodge ball in the gym. My daughter would have rather been at practice because one, she doesn't like to miss and two, her closest friends were at the gym. As a mom, I would have liked to see her go and participate with some school sponsored events but could respect her dedication to gym. BUT, she's in High School now and I already told her she's not going to practice the night of the Homecoming Football game. Fortunately practice and the dance don't overlap.

 

[gymnastmom05]

My kids have missed being regularly bored and learning to deal with it. I am not joking, I believe boredom (and the independent, creative action boredom spurs) are very important. Lack of boredom also means they rely less on their siblings for companionship, which I am genuinely sorry about. Of course, they also fight a lot less than my siblings and I did. But fighting and learning to live with/rely on others is also an important life lesson.

I also believe true downtime- time for nothing but daydreaming- is important. it And my kids get much less of that due to daily sports practice (not just gymnastics) - plus school.

Of course these days with so much screen media, lots of kids are missing out on the benefits of experiencing boredom and true downtime. But our family has little media and what we have we restrict, so in our case it is the sports plus school that takes the time from these things.

Chore ideas:
My kids have "big" weekly chore jobs (so, they do them on the weekend, usually.) These are dusting and vacuuming whole house (one kid) and cleaning our 2 bathrooms (other kid). My 7 year old usually loves to help with whatever and keeps her room neat without prompting, so at this point she does not have weekly chores. Daily expectations for all are quick and easy things like setting/clearing table, packing/unpacking their own lunch, rinsing stuff and putting it in the dishwasher, light dishwashing as needed. But the way their practices are, even my gymnast son only has one day of the week where he is not home at least a short time between school and gym. If they were gone all day early am to bedtime, I would not make them do daily chores. While they COULD get up early or stay up late to do things, maximising sleep time is in my opinion more important.

I think my opinion and yours is very similar. Because she's gone that entire time, I just feel like it's too much to get up earlier (she's already up before I am) and if she can get her homework done and in bed early, I think it's better for her health. She does all of the normal daily things for herself like making her lunch, her breakfast, cleaning up those messes, putting her laundry away. She folds laundry when she's home and I have a load ready. If we have a down weekend (which rarely happens), we'll add some things for the family to work on. I'll admit, we have a cleaning lady and a lawn service so most of our house is clean - minus the kids' bedrooms because I don't pay for that so it's their responsibility.

 

[Aussie_coach]

Ahh, makes sense gymnastmom05, in understand why she didn’t think it was a big deal to miss the dance.

To put a bit of a different perspective on it.

I missed my Senior Prom (which we call a formal here in Australia) because I was competing at Nationals.

That was almost 20 years ago, and I never regretted it for a moment. I got to see a video of the prom the next school day, and it didn’t look at all as exciting as my experience travellling interstate with my team mates to compete at Nationals. Doing something that I dearly loved, hanging with those people with whom I shared a true interest and passion, meeting many more new people from around the country.

 

[OrchidZ]

My gymnast still does chores. She didn't help around the house as much when she had 36 hours, but she's backed down a bit and does more to help. So I think she'll be alright there. I think really it's about general common childhood experiences. With so many hours in the gym for so long, being tired all the time reducing the energy she had for other things, homeschooling/gym schooling to make the best use of her time, injuries that meant more time with doctors/pt.. I can't think of a specific example right now, but it's come up a few times. She recently had an adult ask her about one of those "regular" things, and she had to admit she'd never done it. Wish I could remember what it was. I try to include them when I think of them though, if I can. But brainstorming things she won't have context for: Pep rally. School fundraisers. Presidential fitness test. Being bored in the summer or on vacations. The impact of sleeping in every day during the summer on the return to school.

 

[John]

DD does chores and socializes. She receives an allowance because I love her. She spends that allowance on things she wants and has learned spend wisely.

She may miss school events but I have a different take on this. My DD is doing what she loves her normal is gym it's different from my childhood normal. Everyone's normal is different.

 

[gymnastmom05]

She may miss school events but I have a different take on this. My DD is doing what she loves her normal is gym it's different from my childhood normal. Everyone's normal is different.

I try to tell myself this. I just sometimes question if she chooses gym because she doesn't know anything different. Gym has been her life for so long, well before school functions. I think as a parent, its the part of me that is always looking out for her long term happiness. I question if someday she'll look back and wished she would have been more involved with her school. On the flip side, I also think she's very lucky to be able to dedicate so much time to something she loves. We all know adulthood comes with so much responsibility, spending something you're so passionate about isn't as easy. That magic crystal ball would make all of this worry unnecessary! : )

 

[mom2newgymnast]

I think we've been lucky so far and hope it will continue. My daughter is an 11 year old level 8 that has been on team since she was a 6 year old level 2. She practices ~20 hours a week now, but it was a gradual increase from 6 hours per week at level 2. She just hit 20 this year. She also only has 4 practices a week, 3 week nights and Saturday. I've asked and she really feels like she hasn't missed out on anything. She still has sleepovers and goes to birthday parties. She'll be going to her first school dance next week (it's on a Friday night - not one of her practice nights). She goes to public school and has a regular schedule (although she was a little late to practice to every practice for the past 5 years, because I refused to check her out early) and has always been a great student. In elementary school, she was still able to be in clubs that met on her off days including run club and Odyssey of the Mind. She won't be able to be on a school sports team because of her schedule, but other than that, she really isn't missing anything. At home, she still has responsibilities. She still has friends outside of gym. Many of her friends in other sports have practices every day after school and games on weekends too. No regrets for her so far. I do think having only 4 practices a week helps. And, fwiw, she is at a competitive gym for our area and does well there.

 

[aerials]

I try to tell myself this. I just sometimes question if she chooses gym because she doesn't know anything different. Gym has been her life for so long, well before school functions. I think as a parent, its the part of me that is always looking out for her long term happiness. I question if someday she'll look back and wished she would have been more involved with her school. On the flip side, I also think she's very lucky to be able to dedicate so much time to something she loves. We all know adulthood comes with so much responsibility, spending something you're so passionate about isn't as easy. That magic crystal ball would make all of this worry unnecessary! : )

This....I worry about this as well. My dd is in high school now and I let her miss so she can go to games/dances/homework/etc.. She is in all honors/AP and it is getting tough to juggle everything. I do worry that she is "scared" to leave gymnastics because it is all that she knows. It has been such a big part of her life.

 

[SMH]

This....I worry about this as well. My dd is in high school now and I let her miss so she can go to games/dances/homework/etc.. She is in all honors/AP and it is getting tough to juggle everything. I do worry that she is "scared" to leave gymnastics because it is all that she knows. It has been such a big part of her life.

My daughter is much younger ( 9 ) but she’s been in gymnastics since she was 5. I too worry that since gymnastics is all she’s done since she can remember, and it’s all she knows, she might miss out on something else she could love. She expressed interest in dance, so we are squeezing a few dance classes in now while her practice hours allow it. (Her Gym has relatively low hours for compulsory)
She’s already been asked to join the dance team, but there is no way she could compete both. She knows she has to make a decision after this season and it just gives me a knot in my stomach to think that my 9 yr old has to make a big choice to give up one or the other at such a young age. FWIW she’s still in ‘love’ with gymnastics and ‘likes’ dance- but I wonder how things would be different if she had not been in the gym for so many years at a younger age.

 

[Cmumgym]

The benefit

My daughter is much younger ( 9 ) but she’s been in gymnastics since she was 5. I too worry that since gymnastics is all she’s done since she can remember, and it’s all she knows, she might miss out on something else she could love. She expressed interest in dance, so we are squeezing a few dance classes in now while her practice hours allow it. (Her Gym has relatively low hours for compulsory)
She’s already been asked to join the dance team, but there is no way she could compete both. She knows she has to make a decision after this season and it just gives me a knot in my stomach to think that my 9 yr old has to make a big choice to give up one or the other at such a young age. FWIW she’s still in ‘love’ with gymnastics and ‘likes’ dance- but I wonder how things would be different if she had not been in the gym for so many years at a younger age.

the Benifit is that gymnastics is such a young sport and after all the skills strength and flex
They learn during their time. Once it is over and if they choose to endeavour with another sport that gymnastics has helped them achieve more in any sport they choose to peruse

 

[Cmumgym]

Gymnastics is amazing for teens it keeps them busy during times where parents could ask where there child is. Our gym was opened as a place to keep young teens off the street. A place where they were taught discipline, time management through school, work ethic and so much more. In life you give and you gain. There is so much you can miss and so much you can gain. In the end it gives you maturity beyond your years wether that’s positive or negative it’s the same as being an adult. And gymnastics beyond the sport gives you life skills. As an adult with your job you will miss out on chores and family outings and also gain a lot. It’s all a balance. And gymnastics teaches balance