WAG Why Are Parents the Enemy?

[Deleted member 18037]

During the time I can count on one hand the number of times parents said "Thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to meet with us."

I have to say I am always mindful to say thank you when coaches spend time answering my questions. Always.

Spent my former life in sales support. Statistically, for every one good comment, review you will get 8 negatives. It is the way of the things. People are more likely to speak up when unhappy. Not so much when happy.

I think that is why I try to give postive and appreciative feedback when folks spend extra time with us.

 

[Really]

I have seen many of these type of articles (both from the gym and in various places) and I don't have a problem with them.... This is very different than handing a person an article specifically tailored to their job (how to coach). The articles you refer to are more like a parent handing a coach and article about a medical/learning condition that the athlete has and how it may impact her ability to perform in practice. Completely relevant and the coach would likely be appreciative of it.

You're presuming that the coach mass emailing out parenting articles knows each of the parents and gymnasts, and considers the article personally relevant to all our families. My take was she didn't know my family, and that I barely had a relationship with her (but then I've noticed that many of the coaches at my DD's gym still confuse which gymnast goes with which parent, although they at least manage to match me to a gymnast of the same ethnicity when they mistake me for another kid's mom!) Particularly since, earlier that week shortly before emailing out offending article, she had just been sending out emails about how we were not welcome to observe practices for more than the first and last fifteen minutes. I'm sure some parents who had a better-established relationship with the coach didn't mind receiving parenting advice from her. Since it was my DD's first month on team, I thought it was highly inappropriate and set a bad tone for the relationship in the years to come.

 

[wandrewsjr]

You're presuming that the coach mass emailing out parenting articles knows each of the parents and gymnasts, and considers the article personally relevant to all our families. My take was she didn't know my family, and that I barely had a relationship with her (but then I've noticed that many of the coaches at my DD's gym still confuse which gymnast goes with which parent, although they at least manage to match me to a gymnast of the same ethnicity when they mistake me for another kid's mom!) Particularly since, earlier that week shortly before emailing out offending article, she had just been sending out emails about how we were not welcome to observe practices for more than the first and last fifteen minutes. I'm sure some parents who had a better-established relationship with the coach didn't mind receiving parenting advice from her. Since it was my DD's first month on team, I thought it was highly inappropriate and set a bad tone for the relationship in the years to come.

The coach knows your daughter is an athlete and knows she has a parent, so wouldn't a general article about parenting an athlete be by definition relevant, no matter how well the coach knew you?

 

[gymgal]

You're presuming that the coach mass emailing out parenting articles knows each of the parents and gymnasts, and considers the article personally relevant to all our families. My take was she didn't know my family, and that I barely had a relationship with her (but then I've noticed that many of the coaches at my DD's gym still confuse which gymnast goes with which parent, although they at least manage to match me to a gymnast of the same ethnicity when they mistake me for another kid's mom!) Particularly since, earlier that week shortly before emailing out offending article, she had just been sending out emails about how we were not welcome to observe practices for more than the first and last fifteen minutes. I'm sure some parents who had a better-established relationship with the coach didn't mind receiving parenting advice from her. Since it was my DD's first month on team, I thought it was highly inappropriate and set a bad tone for the relationship in the years to come.

I wasn't really presuming anything, honestly. I just don't think it is any different than a teacher sending home a letter providing recommendations for making sure the student is properly prepared for beginning of year state testing. I don't that teacher. She doesn't know my parenting style or how I might take the letter. Maybe met her once at orientation and yet she is telling me to make sure my child goes to bed by 8p, has a good breakfast with protein and carbs in the morning, a low stressed morning before school, on and on. And in some ways this is worse than an article because she has written it herself specifically for her kids, vs a general article providing helpful hints on navigating this athlete world. I don't know. People come at situations with very different perspectives based on previous experiences and like I said previously, I don't know what was in the article you were given. Perhaps I would have been offended by it if it was harsh. But in general, I think most parents find those "types" of articles useful, which is why the coaches pass them out. As for the no-viewing policy, it's very common in gyms but a lot of new parents are caught off guard by it and no, that is not the best way to alert the new families of it. That is a classic case of a little well planned communication goes a long way.

And this is the minefield coaches must tread carefully every day. The same article forwarded to parents can elicit responses from "how dare you tell me how to parent, you don't even have kids of your own" to "thanks for the info, it was helpful". The stress of navigating this is real, and I have seen otherwise excellent coaches quit and choose other professions because of it.

agreed.

 

[Flyaway]

I wasn't really presuming anything, honestly. I just don't think it is any different than a teacher sending home a letter providing recommendations for making sure the student is properly prepared for beginning of year state testing. I don't that teacher. She doesn't know my parenting style or how I might take the letter. Maybe met her once at orientation and yet she is telling me to make sure my child goes to bed by 8p, has a good breakfast with protein and carbs in the morning, a low stressed morning before school, on and on. And in some ways this is worse than an article because she has written it herself specifically for her kids, vs a general article providing helpful hints on navigating this athlete world. I don't know. People come at situations with very different perspectives based on previous experiences and like I said previously, I don't know what was in the article you were given. Perhaps I would have been offended by it if it was harsh. But in general, I think most parents find those "types" of articles useful, which is why the coaches pass them out.

Yes I don't get taking offense to stuff like this. I think having the perspective that perhaps there ARE parents who would find this stuff interesting, even if I don't, will help lessen the tendency to take it personally. I appreciate the difficult position coaches, teachers, etc. are in - trying to appeal to a BROAD variety of parents, parenting styles, etc. If I can assume positive intent in situations until proven otherwise, then I hope I've done my part as a parent to make the relationship between myself and the coach or teacher more open, and then as a result of that, the communication will be more open too.

 

[Puff]

And as a parent, I find it's hard to trust someone who obviously distrusts you and thinks so little of you. It's also impossible for the parents to earn trust from the coaches if not given the opportunity to do so.

Dd's coaches don't communicate with me at all. I read here about yearly conferences, written progress reports, team meetings - I have not gotten any of that. The gym obviously communicates about practice schedules, meet schedules, and money due, but I have not exchanged more than 10 words with dd's coach this year, which were probably hi, thanks, bye, see you later. Same with last year's coach. I don't have the coach's email address or phone number to text. I guess if I wanted to set up a meeting with the coach, I'd have to try to do it through the front desk of the gym - but I'm not sure how that would work since the time I emailed the front desk to ask a quick administrative (not specific to my dd) question, I got no response at all.

I've experienced all of that. I would add that you'd like to get the slightest feel for who these people are, and know that they give at least the tiniest crap about your kid/your family, so that when you go to meets you aren't saying well there's my daughter with some people that I don't know, who she spends half of her life with, who avoid any contact with me even though I write the check for all of this. You'd rather feel like ok I like these people, I want to cheer for them, I'm glad my daughter spends half her life with them even though it costs a fortune and means we are sacrificing getting to witness half of her childhood and get to spend precious little time together. We parents pay a huge price, yet, thinking we might get the respect of normal courtesy between people, often are made to feel like annoyances, or worse even viewed with open disgust, except for possibly that brief moment before they ask for volunteers to set up and tear down the meets.

The other thing is fairness. What makes these uncomfortable lack of relationships all the more hurtful, is that there are always the parents who are also coaches at the gym, or employees of the gym, or friends with the coaches, or the hand-selected booster club parents. The parents who know all the coaches, know everything that's going on, and can pretty much have a chat with any coach at any time. Try forking over all this money, seldom seeing your kid, told not to watch practice, emails unacknowledged, contact clearly avoided, no one to touch base with if your daughter comes home upset, and then frequently witnessing friendly socialization between the coaches and these other parents. See if that makes you feel like you'd be open to taking your daughter to a different gym.

Many times the coach-parent relationship has been contrasted/compared here to the teacher-parent relationship. The point usually being, that schools have parent-teacher conferences and open lines of communication. Well, I would add that you can be damned sure that is the case at private schools where parents are forking over sizable amounts and the schools care about their clientele and reputation.

 

[raenndrops]

We've had quite a few. There is a set of pbars pretty close to where the parents sit and some parents (especially men) will want to try something. We've also had quite a few parents doing their yoga stretches on the floor before class starts - definitely not allowed, for liability reasons and because coaches need to set up. We have a sign now but it still happens.

So your parents actually sit out in the gym??? That sounds like a recipe for disaster!

At our gym, the parents can sit on the bleachers or "upstairs" or leave. I am the only one who sits on the bottom row of bleachers (of course, my job is to be there in case somebody needs me to answer questions or explain something a different way or suggest a correction or watch / record a skill or routine). The parents that stay are generally chatting with other parents or on their phones / tablets and occasionally glance down at the girls.

It has only been an issue ONCE in the 9 years I have been involved with the team… and that was from a parent that brought her DD from a big club that practiced a lot more hours than we did (the girl went from 12 hours to 7.5 hours) with much stricter rules.

 

[Natasha]

I think some coaches have a skewed perception of the true percentage of crazy parents. I think this becomes especially true for the coaches that do not have some type of standard interaction with all parents. If you are only communicating with the parents that reach out to you and the parents have already picked up on the cues that you don't want to be bothered by the parents, then the normal rational parents are going to respect that unless they have a problem. Therefore, most of your interactions are going to be CGMs and CGDs. Reality is most of the parents at most gyms are sane, rational parents who are doing a pretty good job of parenting their athlete but just might like some communication sometimes, especially since once our kids hit optional levels you probably spend a whole lot more time with them than we do.

 

[Natasha]

I'm not asking to design everything they are experiencing, I'm asking to be informed about what they are experiencing if it is something major. See the difference?

One mom at old gym was told at the end of the season that her daughter was being demoted (lower hour group) because because her DD wasn't serious enough at training. That was the first mom heard of any issues, she had no opportunity to address it with her DD and was totally blindsided. Not OK in my opinion.

Can you imagine a school teacher at the end of the year saying, "I'm sorry, Suzie has to stay in 3rd grade this year because she didn't do the work she needed to do to pass" and this is the first the parent has heard of it?? In school we get progress reports every 4 1/2 weeks. Now, for the record, I have no problem with the natural consequences of being put in the lower group, but I would have a problem with paying lots of money for my child to apparently not be working. My dd formerly was at a gym where there were a couple girls in her group that played around quite a bit, didn't work much, socialized a lot. (And this was an optional level group) I always wondered if the coaches ever bothered to tell the parents because in talking to the parents at the meets it was clear that they had no clue that their child was not actually working. That would not be okay with me to put out that much money and not have the feedback that my child is not working.

 

[stacy]

The problem with your thinking is that the parents in the "no communication with coaches" scenario is that the coaches could be missing.
We have 3 girls on our team with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. We also have 6 girls on team with asthma and 4 with ADHD.
If the parents did not communicate this to coaches / teachers, it could result in a variety of issues:
1. Gymnast could be seen as not working hard enough or playing around.
2. Gymnast could have a serious asthma attack (I read recently of a student who died at school because of an asthma attack - the school knew he had asthma, but insisted his inhaler be safely kept in the principal's office). If the gym doesn't know about the asthma, they may yell at the gymnast for trying to get to an inhaler.
3. If they don't know about the ADHD, they won't know about any behavior plan in place. Without communication, the coaches won't know about adjustments in medication or be able to provide additional insight needed when determining a treatment plan.

 

[stacy]

The problem with your thinking is that the parents in the "no communication with coaches" scenario is that the coaches could be missing.
We have 3 girls on our team with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. We also have 6 girls on team with asthma and 4 with ADHD.
If the parents did not communicate this to coaches / teachers, it could result in a variety of issues:
1. Gymnast could be seen as not working hard enough or playing around.
2. Gymnast could have a serious asthma attack (I read recently of a student who died at school because of an asthma attack - the school knew he had asthma, but insisted his inhaler be safely kept in the principal's office). If the gym doesn't know about the asthma, they may yell at the gymnast for trying to get to an inhaler.
3. If they don't know about the ADHD, they won't know about any behavior plan in place. Without communication, the coaches won't know about adjustments in medication or be able to provide additional insight needed when determining a treatment plan.

My daughter has dyslexia and her coaches are able to adjust how they give her directions and are very understanding.Otherwise,she would be totally lost.

 

[raenndrops]

My daughter has dyslexia and her coaches are able to adjust how they give her directions and are very understanding.Otherwise,she would be totally lost.

I left out the 2 girls on our team with dyslexia. That is definitely another issue coaches might need to know.

 

[MILgymFAM]

When my YDD was first diagnosed with hashimotos and celiac I grabbed a meeting with her HC to let him know, to which his response was basically "so" and dismissal. In the time he was her coach he never wanted to get her issues at all. It was unfortunate for my DD and frustrating for me, especially when medical things were often deemed by him to be faking on her part.

 

[stacy]

I left out the 2 girls on our team with dyslexia. That is definitely another issue coaches might need to know.

It surprisingly does.She has relied on watching her teammates while doing conditioning in the past to know when to stop sit-ups,push-ups,etc because she has a hard time focusing on the movement while counting at the same time.Shes had to condition alone after a bad injury and the coach figured this out and had her look at the clock and when the big hand gets to five (for example)she can stop doing whatever the coach wants her to do.She also does better when her coaches physically show her how to do a skill rather than using just verbal instruction.

 

[raenndrops]

It surprisingly does.She has relied on watching her teammates while doing conditioning in the past to know when to stop sit-ups,push-ups,etc because she has a hard time focusing on the movement while counting at the same time.Shes had to condition alone after a bad injury and the coach figured this out and had her look at the clock and when the big hand gets to five (for example)she can stop doing whatever the coach wants her to do.She also does better when her coaches physically show her how to do a skill rather than using just verbal instruction.

For one of our girls, she struggled with the L3 routines, so after 1 season, we moved her to Xcel. A lot less to remember that way and out of order is fine… and if she goes too fast, she just does the macarena at the end as a way of saying "stop the music."

 

[stacy]

My daughter does pretty well with routines but she goes through them at home (just the dance part).It takes lots of repetition but this has improved with her time in gymnastics.

 

[H.J.]

And this is the minefield coaches must tread carefully every day. The same article forwarded to parents can elicit responses from "how dare you tell me how to parent, you don't even have kids of your own" to "thanks for the info, it was helpful". The stress of navigating this is real, and I have seen otherwise excellent coaches quit and choose other professions because of it.

I've been thinking a lot about this as I read through all the responses in this thread -- there's no way to make everyone happy. Everyone has a different set of expectations and interpretations. I can see why so many coaches are jaded. Still, I also have tremendous respect and admiration for those who keep trying to find ways to have positive relationships with the parents.

 

[H.J.]

There is no viewing area outside the gym space itself, just a narrow hallway with cubbies for kids' things and the bathrooms. Once you enter the gym, there is a seating/viewing area to one side with more cubbies and folding chairs for parents. It's pretty clear where the "gym" area starts, since it's blocked off by little gates and the seating area is on a wood floor, while the gym floor is matted and maybe 6-8" higher than the wood floor. It is not ideal - parents can't see the vault or the pit bar from the seating area, and with the younger kids especially the child (or parent) wants to interact when their class happens to be near the seating area. It definitely makes the parent/coach relationship harder because it gives parents an opportunity to try to talk to the coach or child during class. But with the building space the way it is, I don't think there's a better way.

Our seating area is literally 2 feet from the bars area -- no glass partition or anything. Team parents are told to limit their practice viewing to the last 30 mins for the upper levels. I know lots of gyms limit it to 10 mins... or none at all. Someone said this sounds like a recipe for disaster -- I don't know. Maybe it does make things worse at our gym. Haven't really thought about it.

 

[H.J.]

I typed out a longer response, but deleted it. Why does there need to be more communication? If the kid's having fun, cool.

One the one hand, this seems way too oversimplified. On the other hand, yes -- nothing else matters. Gymnastics is an invasive, psychologically-, physically-, emotionally, and mentally-demanding sport. Maybe all competitive sports are in their own way, but the grueling 4-hour practices, the fear, the potential for emotional abuse ... I don't know. Communication seems pretty important.

 

[H.J.]

The craziest parents don't think they are crazy . That's what makes them the craziest. It's in a parents nature to place blame anywhere but on their precious DD. Some Parents are incapable of believing that DD would ever do anything wrong and would never embellish or tell a lie (gasp, how dare I use that word , my DD would never)...
Parents also contribute heavily to children losing interest in the sport. Having someone living vicariously through you is a buzz kill. (Oh I have a special relationship with my DD unlike any other parent has ever had in the history of man kind, I am the best parent in the world. Only I can talk to DD about fear issues and help her to solve them and push through because I am the beast , I mean best , lol did I say beast?).
Because paremtal pressure absolutely contributes to fear as well. (Oh not in my case I am willing to do anything including extra privates , one on one fear counseling on the way home, during dinner, church, talk to your uncle and I will Watch every workout and be there to help you through it. Just between us the coaches don't know I have this special relationship with my DD they are so wrong ).
Because no Matter how much a parent tries the child can see right through them. (Oh. Not me, I am the coolest parent in the world and I am really awesome, again I am the best parent in the history of man kind.
Because as coaches we really don't have time to deal with the above issues over and over and over again. We are here to help children not parents, particularly the large group of parents that fall into this category. Hope that helps and is not offensive to the OP , as I am just responding to the general post. .

Not offensive/offended at all.