Parents What type of gym parent are you?

[my4buffaloes]

The kind that wishes her girls would quit so I can fund college and retirement. But I live that they are gymnasts so it is a partial wish. The other part is just wishing for more money.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

The kind that wishes her girls would quit so I can fund college and retirement. But I live that they are gymnasts so it is a partial wish. The other part is just wishing for more money.

So what you really want is to win the lottery
Me too.

 

[wnl256]

I will tell you what kind of gym parent I am. Those who know me from the breakfast club already know my answer...

I am a RETIRED gym parent.

DD left gymnastics in May of this year, just after regionals.

But when I was a practicing gym parent I was mostly a drop-and-go. Well, really since it was my wife who did the drop I was more a go-and-pickup. During the first year or two we spent more time watching. But that was because practices were shorter and our daughter was younger. I enjoyed seeing her get new skills, even at levels 6 and 7. I have some great videos of her "firsts": first kip, first ROBHSBT, first standing back tuck on beam, first giant, first half, etc.

I was pretty active around the gym, always helping out with meet setup, running the scoring system, and anything else they needed help with. But I was also the kind of dad that would take a million pictures and lots of video at meets, and would obsessively track scores.

 

[sshreed]

Retired Hubby drives carpool and drops off. Carpool brings home. Maybe 2-3 times a month I step foot in the gym. Usually when my gymmie says, "Mom, I have a new skill to show you!!" We do watch and record gymnasts events, but I still call most skills flippy things... Gym stress minimal for me, until competitions of course.

 

[duyetanh]

Right now? A very heartfelt parent. As in my heart is feeling for my DD who is dealing with a major fear block. All I can do is be supportive.

 

[juststartingout]

I would say I'm somewhere in between. Last year I was drop and go, not by choice it was the gym's rules. This year I can watch and I do. Mostly I get some quiet time talking to other moms while hubby deals with the other 2 at home. It's my adult time since at work I work solo. If she is having a bad practice I will leave and go to the store for a while just because it's frustrating to watch but I don't comment on it to her. I would rather watch practice than meets any day, meets stress me out. Not because I'm wanting her to win or care how she does but if she has a bad meet and gets down on herself I see her sad face on the floor and can't do anything to help. It sucks to just want to hug them and tell them it's ok and not be able to. She's uptraining this year instead of competing so I'm a happy camper. She's having fun learning lots of fun new skills and I don't have to watch meets. Of course when all her training buddies are talking about the meets she might regret the decision then I'll feel bad again. Being a mom is hard.

 

[z2akids]

I am mostly a drop n go. I do enjoy watching DD practice and I try to catch a couple if hours every few weeks. But, as much as I enjoy watching her enjoy learning, I hate being at practice. We have a couple of CGMs who have a whole clique of wanna bes. The ringleader has a gymnast who watches her through most of practice and the CGM mouths and points directions throughout practice. Wanna Be #1 knows how many turns each child gets on each piece of equipment. Needless to say, my life is much less stressful when I am not in the gym at all.

I am a very involved parent at my children's school. It has been a challenge to back off completely from things like Booster Board and other volunteer opportunities. But, there is too much crazy to put myself in that position.

 

[munchkin3]

Lately, a bit too involved.....began by supporting my munchie through a block......it's become unhealthy so time to drop and go, and pass it off to the coach......

sometimes us Moms get sucked into situations- it began with helping, and ends up with me being a sucker!

 

[auswi]

Im the kind that eats minties! ....( As in moments like these you need minties
...).
So far Dd doesnt have fear issues but I do -after seeing a couple of nasty falls & ambo trips-& our gym is very safety conscious , no issues there-I twitch & jump when the scarier moments are happening SO another gym mum & I tend to eat minties & laugh together on the days we coincide at gym

 

[Popcorn]

^Agreed! My gymnast doesn't have fear issues but I sure do!

I try to get to the last 15 minutes as much as I can and the coach is very good about letting the boys show their parents a new exciting skill after practice if they can't be there during practice.

I have nothing but respect for how hard my kids work at this sport. Straight legs are for the coach to worry about. Routing for them is my job. (And holding my breath during giants then giving a thumbs up as though my heart didn't just almost stop.)

So I think that makes me an Anxious Gym Mom.